A Little of This...A Little of That...

Christmas Highlights

noreply@blogger.com (Leah) — Wed, 25 Jan 2012 19:22:00 +0000

We had so much fun on our three week vacation north to Oregon and Washington. We headed out December 23, quite early in the morning. Before getting to Oregon we stopped in Sacramento for a quick tour of the capital and to let the kids burn some energy.

They thought the huge Christmas tree was pretty neat!

We made it to Redding that first night and in the morning we stopped at the Sundial Bridge. We weren't in too big of a hurry that day so we walked the bridge and also walked the surrounding areas.

We made it to John's folk's house Christmas Eve - just in time for a yummy dinner! Although we were pretty tired from traveling, we attended their Christmas Eve candle service.

The pictures I have of Christmas morning are a bit sketchy...I'm sure my sister in law has more of them...but these are the ones we took. Thankfully the kids slept in that morning (I had to wake Abby!) so we were able to catch up on some needed sleep.

Here's William checking out his gifts from Santa. As I learned last year, Santa doesn't wrap gifts. I guess because he simply doesn't have time to.

Abby checking out one of her fun gifts from Santa.

The colorful bags are their stockings. They were loaded with all sorts of fun things.

My niece Amanda was able to get some time off of her schooling to spend the holidays with us! The kids really enjoyed spending time with her - she helped put their race track together, the hot wheels track together - pretty much just showered attention on them! Aunt Gina and Uncle Andy flew in from TN. It was nice to have almost the whole family together!

In the evening we all headed over to Aunt Joanie's house where she made a delicious prime rib dinner!

After yet again stuffing ourselves, the kids played Hungry Hippo with Aunt Gina - one of Aunt Gina's Christmas gifts.

I had to throw this picture in simply because I thought it was SO cute!

Here's Abby getting a Christmas pedicure from Aunt Gina.

Later on in the week a group put together a gingerbread train. It was literally a group effort to get the thing together!

We hit the Air Museum up one day.

It was a busy day so Grandpa and William found a first class seat and took a nap!

Another day John and I took the kids to a Children's Museum. I thought this milking cow was pretty neat! It sprayed water everywhere!

I have more pictures of our trip, as these are only highlights of the first week. The second week we were gone we went to Washington - spent several days in Seattle, went up the Space Needle, toured Microsoft and Safeco Park, drove through the Hoh Rain Forest, spent the night in Astoria and Crescent City. I'll see about posting some pictures of that later.

A little bun

noreply@blogger.com (Leah) — Mon, 23 Jan 2012 17:05:00 +0000

I know I've been absent from blogging for awhile, but for good reason. We are expecting baby #3 in July! We've been keeping this pregnancy a secret simply because we've lost a few pregnancies and it's just easier to keep things quiet until the second trimester, when the risk of miscarriage drops significantly. So...I'm 14 weeks along and so far everything looks great! I took the kids to my doctor appointment this past Tuesday and we all heard the heartbeat! The kids were also unaware of anything, so when the doctor said to them, "That's mommy's baby's heartbeat" they were in a bit of shock. Wide-eyed, William says, "I think....(long pause)....I think we aught to tell Daddy about this." Ahahahaha! That might have been the cutest thing I've heard in a long time!

We would appreciate your prayers for this little babe, and for me, as I'm still a bit of a wreck. Worrying about this baby seems to be a full-time job for me.

And I promise to do better in the post updates! I have some Christmas pictures and stories to share, but they will have to wait. I am simply in survival mode over here since the morning sickness and fatigue just won't go away.

Fa la la la la!

noreply@blogger.com (Leah) — Fri, 16 Dec 2011 00:16:00 +0000

Wow...I can't believe that Christmas is right around the corner!

The kids got an early Christmas package from Aunt Nell last week. I told my sister not to get them anything, but...she's an Auntie, what can I expect?! I love the look on William's face. Once he opened the package and saw what was inside...he couldn't believe it. He had specifically asked for a flashlight for Christmas. And lo and behold...a flashlight comes in the mail!

Along with stickers, their absolute favorite! (Yes, I know Abby's bow doesn't match her outfit, but it doesn't matter. It's her current fav, the "Christmas tree bow", from her friend Zoe. Thanks Kim!)

We decorated Christmas cookies. This was Abby's first time indulging in the colored frosting and sprinkles and I think she enjoyed every second of it!

I did need to tell William that he didn't have to be so stingy with his application of frosting. No frosting means very little stickage of sprinkles.

Making sure everything tastes alright. I didn't need to tell her to go heavier on the frosting!

We also made a "gingerbread" house. Aunt Joanie got me this cake pan a couple of years ago (or last year?) that has made gingerbread house-making much easier! I made a spice cake (which unfortunately cracked like crazy!) and the kids decorated it.

I asked John to run to the store for me to pick up gumdrops for the house, and he came back with literally every kind of candy Stater Bros. had to offer. The kids were seriously impressed with all the candy. I did have to put my foot down about not putting the Jr. Mints on the house. Seriously? Waste good Jr. Mints on a fake gingerbread house? I think not.

This pictures just cracks me up! We put our tree up the day after Thanksgiving, but I only recently picked up candy canes. I gave the box to the kids and told them to place the canes all over. I love how they lined the entire bottom portion of the tree with them!

Last year I was given a cardboard Christmas tree (this year we got a huge house) and now finally this year we are getting around to decorating it.

I know these next pictures aren't really "fa la la-ish" but I have to show them. For Thanksgiving we headed south to spend the day with family. John's sister Deb made the most incredible dinner (must get her stuffing recipe!) and hand-painted turkey cookies for the kids. The next day when they asked to eat them I almost told them no!

Our feast! It was so nice to take the day off from cooking and simply enjoy the day. Much thanks to the many hands that prepared our wonderful dinner!

I think if they had decided to simply serve only black olives Abby would have been completely fine with that! She's my olive eater for sure! William will eat them, too, but Abby is fierce competition!

So Proud

noreply@blogger.com (Leah) — Thu, 15 Dec 2011 23:45:00 +0000

I have so much to blog about...hopefully I'll get around to it soon. This is just a busy time right now for me. However, today was a special day for my boy that I must post some pictures!

Every Thursday he goes to a gymnastics class. It cuts right into nap that I almost didn't sign him up, but Abby seems to have no problem falling asleep a bit later than normal, so we have continued to go. I actually love going. It's a homeschool gym class, and the gym has professional equipment, which I love. He's not really allowed to use much of it yet, since he's only in the preschool class, but the older kids are doing some amazing things on the uneven bars and balancing beams.

Since the picture is so blurry I should mention that my boy is the one in the orange. There are only five, sometimes six kids in his class. With such a small class they get a lot of 1:1 time with the coach.

Today was special since it is the last class before Christmas break. All the kids received a gold medal for participating, along with a few precious seconds on the podium so they could take a bow.

I didn't tell William ahead of time that he was going to be getting a medal, so this came as a complete surprise to him. I wasn't sure if he would even get up there, with so many kids and parents watching, but yup! When his name was called he immediately sprang to his feet and got right up on that podium!

And he had no problem giving his salute, either! I'll probably mention that next time he should leave his socks with me.

The kid was so excited to get this small token! Before going in his room for quiet time he put it around the stair railing "to keep it safe until Daddy comes home."

We couldn't leave until Abby was able to take her turn on the blue square thing. She loves watching William "do gym", but can't wait until she turns three, when she'll be able to be in the preschool class!

I am an Artist

noreply@blogger.com (Leah) — Thu, 01 Dec 2011 04:33:00 +0000

I can't really say that we did a whole lot with this book, although I did have great plans for it. I plan on getting to the activities soon, but since these pictures will soon be outdated, I thought I'd post what we've done so far. The book is about seeing art in nature.

The star in an apple. This was from a page in the book. (And I promise you we don't live in a perpetually dark house. There just isn't enough lighting to make these pictures bright enough. Augh!)

We went on a nature walk. We grabbed the red wagon, a bin from the house, and went out to see what kinds of "art" we could find.

We walked all around our neighborhood, with William frequently asking if "this was nature" and "Can I put it in the nature bin?"

When we got home we went to the backyard and took everything out of the bin and examined the items closer. We talked about texture, size, color, etc.

In the book there was "art" in the clouds. I thought it would be fun to paint with cotton balls. Again, this was one of those "good in theory" ideas, bad in practice. The cotton ball fell apart in the paint and left behind cotton pieces.

So we eventually gave up on that idea and switched to brushes and painting our clouds on black paper. Worked like a charm!

We'll be doing more with this book and the ideas soon.

The House

noreply@blogger.com (Leah) — Thu, 01 Dec 2011 04:17:00 +0000

The kids love playing House. They meticulously set the table, complete with napkins and saucers, then they serve hotdogs and mac 'n cheese - straight from the grill, of course. smile I've been wanting to get them a play house for the patio for some time now, but that just hasn't happened. So when I was contacted by Cascades about receiving a playhouse, I jumped all over it! Last year they sent me a Christmas tree made out of recycled cardboard, which has been a ton of fun to decorate (we are decorating it more this year!) so I was familiar with the company and their products. The Christmas tree is very sturdy, so I was excited to get the playhouse. Well, Cascades delivered on their promise of a playhouse, and the kids are SO enjoying it.

John put it together in no time at all. It has since been affectionately dubbed "The Gingerbread House". I love it!

William was too busy setting things up to even look out the window for a picture. But I really love this thing. It has a front door AND a back door, and comes complete with mailbox and skylights (great for extra ventilation, if you know what I mean!). We haven't decorated the house yet probably because they don't realize that that is even an option. I plan to keep it that way for awhile. So if you're looking for a fun house for your kids stop by to Cascades and pick one up!

Ask Mr. Bear

noreply@blogger.com (Leah) — Tue, 15 Nov 2011 23:23:00 +0000

It's been awhile, I know. We've been doing a lot of reading, but our activities have been focused on fall and Thanksgiving rather than doing a ton of activities relating to Before Five in a Row. However last week we did row Ask Mr. Bear.

The book is about Danny, who asks the farm animals for ideas on what to give his mom for her birthday. He ultimately asks Mr. Bear, who gives him the perfect idea! William had to sequence the book with the story strips. If you look closely you'll see his little tongue sticking out! Too cute!

He's working on his letter writing. He's got a long way to go, but as you can see, he's mastered his name! Yah!

He sorted words out according to their ending sounds.

This classification activity was easy but fun. Really, anytime glue can be brought out and used is an occasion for smiling.

These sheets were fun to incorporate this week. I'm not sure why I never thought to use the Scrabble tiles before, but they worked perfectly for building the vocabulary words. I did not have him to the "write" portion of the sheet.

Here he had to circle the correct beginning sound of the picture. This is too easy for him, but he loves doing them anyway.

We are almost finished with all the books in the Before Five in a Row curriculum. We will be doing I Am An Artist this week and maybe next, and then we are finished. I did just place my order for all the books in the Five in a Row series, so I'm excited to get started on those.

Jesse Bear, What Will You Wear?

noreply@blogger.com (Leah) — Sun, 30 Oct 2011 22:07:00 +0000

Jesse Bear, What Will You Wear? is a fun book with lots of rhymes and poems.

Both kids colored a cover page for our lapbook binder.

We made a "fun" paper bear, with interchangeable clothes. This seemed like a good idea at the time, however a paper bear, with paper tabs that hold the clothes on, and a four year old are not good ideas. The clothes didn't stay on well and he was thoroughly annoyed at the bear pretty much every time I took him out.

We talked about eating healthy, just like Jesse Bear does in the book.

We played a fun rhyming words game.

Since it is fall, I found some fun fall activities and printed them out. He never tires of dot paint.

We labeled the parts of a pumpkin. Who knew a pumpkin had a brain?

After nap time the kids went outside to play.

This was actually borderline science! He had to describe the pumpkin: how it felt, how it looked, did it smell? etc. and then circle the correct answers.

William has his numbers down! (Finally!) Here he had to count the number of pumpkins and circle the correct number.

More pre-writing, which is quite simple for him, but he loves doing these sheets. When he's finished with them he usually grabs his scissors and cuts along the lines.

Call me slow, but I just figured out that we can use the Scrabble tiles for this activity, instead of me tediously cutting out little squares of lettered paper! Yah me!

I don't do a lot of patterns with William (I have no idea why not) but this week we did a lot of them. He gets the whole idea of patterns, but was a little confused as to why I would want to put colored leaves in a line in the first place.

And that's a wrap for this week.

Countertop Yogurt

noreply@blogger.com (Leah) — Tue, 25 Oct 2011 22:42:00 +0000

We eat a lot of yogurt around here. That and the fact that yogurt is loaded with probiotics is what prompted me to do a little research into making my own. I figured if I could make my own I could determine what ingredients went into it, how long to culture it (a longer culture decreases the lactose), and control the cost. All good things in my book.

I was determined not to have to buy another kitchen gadget. I have many of them, but I refuse to buy uni-task items, such as a yogurt maker. I found out that with a little practice I could make counter top yogurt in a crock pot. It it so easy! All you need is milk and bacteria. I got my initial start-up bacteria from a store-bought culture, but you can also use plain ol' yogurt from the store.

I heat my milk (about a half gallon) in my crock for several hours, until the temp is about 180. This will sterilize the milk. Then cool it back down so that you can hold your finger in the crock for 10 seconds without getting burned. (About 90-110 degrees for a good incubation temp.) Then stir in one cup of plain yogurt (I always save a cup of my original batch to "start" the next batch). Put a lid on the crock and wrap in a towel. It's a good idea to keep it free of cold drafts, as you want the milk to cool down slowly. Incubate between four and 24 hours. The longer the incubation period, the less lactose there will be (the bacteria consume the lactose). And, well...that's it. I store my yogurt in glass canning jars, and always use plastic or wood utensils when scooping out the yogurt. Maybe it's an old wives' tale, but they say with any live culture not to put it in contact with metal, as metal is reactive and the culture might get damaged.

The yogurt is quite good plain, but I usually have a batch of homemade granola ready to be sprinkled on the top. (Store-bought granola is too pricey for me!)

This is a half gallon of yogurt. I make this amount twice a week so...yes, we eat roughly a gallon of yogurt a week. Wow...

I've used my yogurt in all sorts of ways...I sub it in recipes that call for buttermilk (did you know you can make this yourself, too??), use it as sour cream, sub it for evaporated milk, put it in smoothies...the list goes on! Basically, though...we just eat it. The kids started out not liking it one bit. I had bought the sugar-loaded yogurt for way too long and that was what they were used to. However, little by little they have learned to really like it. They are asking for it all the time now (but it better have that yummy granola on it!)

And we have rise!

noreply@blogger.com (Leah) — Tue, 25 Oct 2011 03:18:00 +0000

I think I just might have accomplished a personal goal. It's not a lofty goal, but since it has proven quite difficult for me, the fact that I DID IT the other day gives occasion for celebration. Here, let me show you.

See? See? I was able to get a sourdough loaf of bread to rise! Yes, I know that you are going to have to take my word that this loaf is an actual sourdough loaf, but trust me. This is sourdough baby. 100% of this rise was created from a sourdough starter that I have babied for quite some time now. Up until this point I had only created pancakes, crepes, and cheddar crackers. But today! Oh today was the day! I have to say that it was quite good, too. I made some cream of cauliflower soup and the bread made for a very yummy side dish.

The only thing that I have to figure out is how to decrease the first rise time. My initial rise took almost eight hours. I don't really have eight hours to wait, but if that is what it takes to have a perfectly soaked wheat bread that has soured...I'm all over it.

Homemade Cheddar Sourdough Crackers

noreply@blogger.com (Leah) — Sun, 23 Oct 2011 22:44:00 +0000

Like I said, I'm trying to control what my family eats so that we eat healthier. To do that requires more homemade items. Another snack that quickly shoves the ubiquitous bag of goldfish out of my shopping cart is cheddar sourdough crackers. Oh boy. These babies are so good.

I have to admit, though, that without a large food processor they were a bit tedious to make. I tried my Kitchen Aid, my VitaMix, and my small food processor. None of them were a home run when it came to making these crackers, but I was able to use my small food processor, putting small portions of the dough through at a time.

Last week a made a batch of whole wheat crackers. Wow. Mega gross. Even the kids, who normally eat anything labeled "snack", really didn't eat many of them. I upped the ante with the whole wheat crackers, though, and made a hummus dip. Yes, I soaked the beans and everything. I'm not sure what I did wrong but with the gross wheat crackers and boring hummus...I think I'll stay with these cheddar crackers!

Homemade fruit roll-ups

noreply@blogger.com (Leah) — Sun, 23 Oct 2011 22:18:00 +0000

I've been on a mission these last two weeks: no more processed garbage food. No more fast food, even though we really aren't fast food people. More organic food (when it counts and if it doesn't interfere with my frugal-ness). I found a great source for grass-fed beef (an accomplishment, seeing that we live in a desert!) and another source for low-priced organic produce, raw cheeses, and other food items. I'd love to find a way to get raw milk at a decent price, but that one isn't happening quite yet. (I know my mom is reading this and shuttering, remembering having to drink raw milk herself while growing up! But I want to give it a try. The nutrients in that stuff just make my head roll!)

A fun snack that I absolutely nailed on the head was fruit roll-ups. The kids love fruit snacks and fruit roll-ups from the store, but they are loaded with sugar, high fructose corn syrup, and who knows what else. Some of those "ingredients" are even hard to pronounce! So...here's my homemade version.

I took some of my newly made applesauce (yes, I made another batch the other day) and some plums that were starting to go bad on the counter and pureed them in our VitaMix. I placed some parchment paper on a tray and poured the fruit on. Then I slowly dried it out, for about 10 (yes, 10) hours on 170 degrees. After it was cooled I cut the dried fruit into strips. The kids are able to peel back the parchment paper just the ones that are store-bought, but now I can feel confident that they are getting whole, real fruit for their snack.

It's (Slowly) Beginning To Look A Lot Like Fall

noreply@blogger.com (Leah) — Tue, 18 Oct 2011 12:14:00 +0000

Being here on the west coast is way different than being in Michigan, where I grew up. Seasons don't really change dramatically like they do back east. We have HOT or COLD. There is not much in between. However, it is mid October, so we are trying our best to get our home into fall mode.

William insisted that we put a ghost on our door, just like our neighbor. So, off went the adorable tin scarecrow, and on went the tacky white trash bag ghost. They both think it is great. Me? The thing scares me half to death every time I open the door.

We took a trip to our local pumpkin patch the other day. It turned out to be a hot day!

The flying tubs were their favorite! Amazingly they were able to get them to spin. And yes, William has his arms in the air!

I remember the flying swings being my favorite ride at the fair, so I'm thrilled there are swings at our little pumpkin patch for them to ride.

We made caramel apples. I can now say I will not make them for little kids again. I do not like picking stuck-on caramel out of little teeth.

The mornings here have been a bit more mild (nevermind the 90 degree afternoons!) so we've been heading off to the park as much as possible.

Katy No-Pocket

noreply@blogger.com (Leah) — Mon, 17 Oct 2011 21:59:00 +0000

This book was...interesting. First, let me air my hang-ups with the book, just to get them out of the way. The book is about a mother kangaroo who has NO POCKET for her baby. Seriously? How in the world did the baby even come to be, without that necessary pocket? Kangaroos are marsupials so the pocket is, well, important. Another issue that just got to me was the poor grammar. Oh my. There were times when I had to re-read sentences just to get them to make sense. The poor grammar had nothing to do with the style of the book, either. It was just bad. Moving on.

The kids, however, loved the book! This is our first book where the main character is a kangaroo, so they thought that was quite neat.

We learned where kangaroos live - Australia. And yes, I do know that he is pointing to the ocean. There were several other pictures of him actually pointing to the continent, but the smile wasn't as good. I went with a good smile. We learned what kangaroos eat and that they are marsupials. We also talked about what other animals are marsupials. I was even able to find a short video online about kangaroos. The kids' favorite one was of two male kangaroos having this horrific fight. I have to admit, they do have impressive kicks.

Poetry
The brown kangaroo is very funny.
She leaps and hops and runs like a bunny.
And on her stomach is a pocket so wide
Her baby can jump in and go for a ride!

The kids love learning poems!

Our October poem, that we sing while doing calendar time is:
(Sing to the tune of Found a Peanut)
Spell October!
Spell October!
Spell October now with me.
OCT-O-BER
OCT-O-BER

We have another very fun October poem/song that we are learning, but I'll share that another time.

Animal Classification
We learned more about animal families and classification. Did you know that a female kangaroo is called a Flyer and that a male kangaroo is called an Old Man? Me neither. I love it though!

The Runaway Bunny

noreply@blogger.com (Leah) — Mon, 10 Oct 2011 21:29:00 +0000

Oh, I loved this book so much! Its about a baby bunny who tells his mom he wants to run away. But his mother loves him so much, that wherever he runs, his mother is there to catch him in her arms and love him.

We talked about cause and effect.

And...well...I guess that is all the pictures I took on this book! Ha! I will say that I did buy a Fold & Learn for this book. What a colossal waste of money. I didn't feel that I really got much for the high price. There are so many resources out there on the internet that are free (I was having a hard time finding some for this book, though) that I was very disappointed in the Fold & Learn. I will not be buying again.

Caps For Sale

noreply@blogger.com (Leah) — Mon, 10 Oct 2011 21:09:00 +0000

I'm a bit behind in writing these posts, but for the most part I have been doing our rows. A few weeks ago we did the book Caps For Sale. The book is about a peddler who wears his goods, in this case, caps, on his head. One day he has a particularly hard time selling his hats so he goes to the country to rest. After his nap he notices all his caps are gone! You really must read this cute story to find out the rest.

I simply love these activities from Homeschool Creations. They are great for introductory phonics, and they incorporate the book and theme we are doing.

I forgot that a long time ago I bought a sticker book for Abby. She has a great time playing with it while William does his work.

William is continuing to work on his number recognition. His letters and sounds are great, and with the help of these fun number mats his numbers are coming along quite nicely.

We took some time to make several fall art projects. William is showing off his pumpkin mobile.

We go through A LOT of construction paper in this house, so I decided to put some of the scraps to good use! I cut out the trunk of a tree and cut up bits of paper and the kids made fall trees. William has his hanging in the upstairs window.

I LOVE this picture of William! It is so hard to get him to smile his natural smile for the camera so when I get one, I must post it. Here he was showing his money cards. In the story the peddler sells his caps for 50 cents each, so we learned about the various coins and what they each were worth.

This was a fun hat activity that kept Abby busy for, oh, 10 seconds...maybe. It took a long time to cut out each hat that and for so little interest...not sure I'd do this one again.

I did make fun cake pops for the kids this week, in hopes of turning them into monkey heads. Yeah, that didn't really happen. But the pops were still good, plain and all.

Saturday Phone Dump

noreply@blogger.com (Leah) — Sat, 01 Oct 2011 22:14:00 +0000

I know I'm a little behind in my Five in a Row posts, but that will have to wait. I just purged my phone of all it's pictures and boy, do I have a lot of fun things to share. Just excuse the poor quality.

William took swimming lessons this summer. It didn't turn out like I was hoping, due to a flaky teacher, but he had tons of fun and I'm glad we did it.

I made relish for the first time! It was a somewhat easy project, however it had to be started the night before, leaving the veggies in a brine, so the next day was a fairly straightforward process.

We are getting lots of work done in our backyard! I'll post more about this later, but here's a sneak peak. The circle you see is the start of our fire pit. The concrete is stamped and colored (the powder you see is the color going on) and it looks so beautiful! The existing patio was torn out, and new concrete was poured. My little piece of paradise in the desert.

I also canned pickles. The cukes were from my garden, and the spices I used were similar to the ones in the relish. SO yum!

Abby is getting to be quite the helper when it comes to grocery shopping. Out of the blue she insisted she take her shopping cart to the store and well, when a gal wants a cart a momma has to oblige!

We went to our last Angel game last Saturday, and on the way down we stopped at Bass Pro Shop. This Arctic Cat was quite the hit with Abby.

I found this fun project on a blog I like and decided to make my own for our school room. I ripped up a Dick and Jane book and Mod Podged away! John promised me he's going to hang this up today, and the plan is to put a red book shelf under it. I'll keep you posted.

See that awesome turquoise light? That was another afternoon project I did while the kiddos napped. I have a brass lamp in the living room that screamed drab, and John agreed to let me take it to fab. He however, wasn't sure of my skills and said that I needed to find a practice piece first. I scoured the local thrift stores and found this beauty, loaded with brass. I found a color I loved (that also happened to go fabulously with the turquoise pillows and vase I have in the living room) and got to work. 30 minutes later I had a brand new lamp! I upcycled the ancient silk plant that was sitting in on the sideboard by pulling several flowers out and placing them in a bud vase. Voila! New decor! (The lamp shade WILL be going, but I have yet to find one that I like. If I can't find anything else, I might just pull the fabric off this one and recover it.)

I think we might have gone full circle in the bug department. Remember those tobacco worms we found in our garden a bit ago? Well, I think we found the adult. The picture simply doesn't do it justice, as that thing was muy grande.

So much else has been happening over here, but that will all have to wait. I have yogurt incubating on my counter that is simply needing my attention now.

Goodnight Moon

noreply@blogger.com (Leah) — Fri, 23 Sep 2011 00:27:00 +0000

I know, I'm a little behind in blogging about our book reading, I mean rowing. We had company over this past week and we weren't able to do any of our preschool work, so we went a few days over into this week finishing up the activities I had planned for this book. It was a simple book, but surprisingly both kids really loved it.

They love doing Do-A-Dot painting, and we hadn't done it in awhile, so I got some printouts of the letter "M" and they went to town painting the letter.

They also did a poke pin page of the letter "M".

Abby got a new pencil box from Grandma and she's addicted to the glue stick. It's purple, and she's in love with it. Here she's not really gluing anything...just "painting" with the purple stick. Oh, and that Mod Podge in the corner? Oh yeah! I found the neatest craft, pinned it on my Pintrest board, and actually did it. I know, I know...you're aching to see it, but that craft has nothing to do with moons and the letter "M". You'll have to wait for another post.

I struggled with finding activities for this book, so we learned about the different phases of the moon. Since finding activities that corresponded with this book was hard, we did more work in his Abeka K4 book and his Kumon workbooks.
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I know you all are wanting to know about the worms. It was brought to my attention that they are probably not tomato worms but tobacco worms. I agree. Either way, they like eating tomato plant leaves and stalks, and within hours their little habitats that we set up for them were completely bare of foliage. What remained were humongous piles of frass. (That's scientific language for "poop".) By my calculations they were going at a rate of 1-1.5 PPH. You know, Pellets Per Hour. I won't even go into how bad they smelled, after only several hours (and many, many pellets later!). Simply put, they are gone. To worm haven. And I don't think the kids have even noticed.

Tomato

noreply@blogger.com (Leah) — Tue, 20 Sep 2011 18:59:00 +0000

Yes, I said tomato, singular, because it would be a bit dishonest to make the word plural and imply that my garden has actually been producing them at a normal level. Nope. Not here. I think I read somewhere that everyone is able to grow tomatoes, but apparently no one has meet me yet. My plants are huge, folks. Huge. I pruned them a bit a few weeks ago, thinking that all their energy has been put into making new foliage, but that didn't help a bit. I still only had one tomato. Teeny and tiny. I, however, put that thing right into my relish I made not too long ago, because I wasn't going to let it go to waste.

That brings us to today. I went out with the kids to water and I bent down to pull some dead leaves off the humongous zucchini plant. A tomato stem bopped me on my head and I brushed it aside. When I stood up I almost passed out. There, on that scoffed off branch was the largest tomato worm I had ever seen. Once I regained my composure I of course called the kids over to take a look at it. Well, I know better than to let it stay on my tomato-less bush so I cut it off and disposed of it. I quickly ran into the house and googled it. I found the neatest picture of it's, um, waste, and quickly realized that those little square green things in garden box #4 were not something that I wanted in there. I followed the trail of poop (is worm waste called that?!?) and sure enough, there was another one....and another one....and...okay, you get my point. My tomato plant was full of them. While the kids played tee-ball I disposed of them.

But not all of them. You really didn't think that I'd snip all of them in half with my trusty blue kitchen scissors now, did you? You are reading the ramblings of a born and bred homeschooled gal who has two littles who find these things awesome. These worms are making for an incredible science lesson.

They are SO large that you can see even the finest detail on them.

Well, if you are in the area feel free to come over and take a peek at them. These beauts are sitting right on our kitchen counter.

Now, if you'll excuse me, I'll be heading to the store to buy me some Bt.

Update: their poop is called frass, for anyone wanting to know.
You're welcome.

Angus Lost

noreply@blogger.com (Leah) — Sat, 10 Sep 2011 22:36:00 +0000

The last two weeks have been spent on the book Angus Lost. I'll be honest. I'm not sure why it is is such a highly recommended book. Maybe I'm just tired from all the heat we've been having, but after such a fun row with We're Going on a Bear Hunt I found this book a tad dull. The kids did enjoy the book, and I was able to pick up several other Angus books, Harry the Dirty Dog books, and other fun dog books.

This dog sorting activity proved way too easy for him, so Abby soon took it over.

Both kids did this pets activity page. Abby loves her glue.

She also loves pink marker. And this was after I washed her face off. Washable...whatever.

In the book Angus follows the milkman back to his home. So we learned about the milk-making process. We even watched a Reading Rainbow video of how milk and cheese are made.

I made dirt cups for the kids' snack one day. A favorite book was Dirty Harry so I thought this was a great tie-in! Oh, my creativity astounds me some days!

They were a huge hit with the kiddos!

The last two weeks were quite busy, with preschool activities (again, I'm forgetting to take pictures of a lot these days, however their Before Five in a Row lapbook binder is quickly filling with some really cool activities!), a trip to a neat park to explore the lake, a trip to the beach, a birthday trip to Disney, canning English relish, canning pickles, and some fun backyard projects. I'll more more about that later. Good things are happening over here!

Happy weekend everyone!

Overheard

noreply@blogger.com (Leah) — Tue, 06 Sep 2011 21:56:00 +0000

William and Abby chat together all the time while riding in the car. Yesterday, John and I heard the following conversation...

William: Abby, it's getting dark outside. Say, "Yes, Abby." (They have always been instructed to say "Yes, Mom" when I ask them to do something, etc. so William now thinks that applies to him as well.)
Abby: Yes Abby.
William: No, say "Yes, Abby."
Abby, laughing: Yes.
William: When it gets dark it means the sun is going down. At night the sun drops into the ocean and it goes out. That's why it's dark. Say, "Yes, Abby."
Abby: Yes.

Hmmm...might be time to pull out that outdated globe, at least for illustration purposes.

We're Going on a Bear Hunt

noreply@blogger.com (Leah) — Sun, 28 Aug 2011 00:36:00 +0000

Oh! Was this book ever fun! I'm sure most of you know the synopsis of the book, but the actions and motions that went with this book just made it come alive.

We watched the author, Michael Rosen, do a great reading of his book. The kids absolutely loved this video! Each time we watch it we end up talking with a similar accent! Ha!

We read books about other bears and their habitats.

Here he had to trace the bear to his cave. These are great pre-writing activites. I got this activity and more from this site.

We did more practice with patterns. Abby is getting quite good at these!

This is a K4 book I bought from Abeka book. They had a book preview (not really sure what they call those things, since you can't buy the books but only order) but I went because I could get free shipping. I ordered this ABC 123 book, along with a k4 writing book that we won't be starting for awhile, and lots of little readers.

We had a full week of activities, but alas, I didn't take that many pictures. We made of book of all the places the family had to go through, practiced with sequencing cards, did math graphing and more.

This upcoming week I am hoping to do Angus Lost. I think with everything I have planned it will take us two weeks to get through everything. We shall see!

The Big Green Pocketbook

noreply@blogger.com (Leah) — Fri, 19 Aug 2011 21:52:00 +0000

In The Big Green Pocketbook the little girl runs errands with her mom and fills her pocketbook with all her memories of their outing.

William is a color pro, but he likes to color with markers, so we made a book of green things. He also collected a pile of green toys.

He made his own green pocketbook. This was made out of colored foam. Next time I'll trace a pattern out of stiffened felt. The foam wasn't the best choice here. I did make another green pocketbook out of paper so they could each have one, and it served as a great listening guide - I had pictures of each of the many memories the little girl gathers on her trip and when we read each one they added the pictures to their pocketbooks.

"Old MacDonald had a farm, A! E! I! O! U!"

One of the stops the little girl made with her mom was to the ice cream parlor. So, we did this fun ice cream activity. William doesn't really recognize many of the numbers yet, so I thought this would be another fun thing to do to help that along.

In this activity he had to count the number of pictures and circle the correct number.

Find all the Bs! I walked away for a second and when I came back he had found every single "B" in the mini story.

A math/graphing activity. Count the number of caterpillars and color the correct number of boxes.
This page was easy. When there were more bugs on the page he got a little carried away and occasionally would color more boxes than necessary.

Princess Abby decided she wanted to do some graphing too.

There were more activities that we did with this book but I failed to take pictures of everything. Sometimes it is just easier not to be all paparazzi with my kiddos!

Wow

noreply@blogger.com (Leah) — Wed, 17 Aug 2011 03:35:00 +0000

Look what I pulled out of our garden today! John has been watering the garden the last few days, and obviously it's been at night. It had been about 4 days since I had been out to the garden, and boy was I surprised to see this baby!

The one on the left is a normal sized zucchini, and the powerhouse one on the right is about the length of my arm. I'm running out of recipes...twice baked zucchini potatoes, zucchini brownies, zucchini bread...need more recipes!

Play With Me (Continued)

noreply@blogger.com (Leah) — Sat, 06 Aug 2011 23:22:00 +0000

We started this book last week and have continued with it and it's themes this week.

This is the first narration we have done, and aside from my incorrect spelling (opps!) I'm quite proud of this page.

Abby is doing quite well with her colors. Not always spot on, but she's getting there!

The purple page on the left has pictures that were completely cut out by William. He's getting so good at using scissors. We also learned a bit about the parts of an insect.