First Big Snow 2012

Cullen has been taking the dog and kids to the forest preserve lately in the warm weather but a few times in the snow. This time I joined them with coffee and my snow pants I was toasty warm. We are trying to have more fun outside and get away from computers and TV. It's been great for the kids to wander around. They still find things to fight over like who's going to pull the sled or ride down the hill first but they can cooperate sometimes.

Challenge

"Poppy" Book 2 in the Poppy Series by Avi

Carys is in the gifted reading program for now. She is challenged to maintain reading and writing skills but also she is given special projects. She had to develop a board game based on the Poppy series books. She needed a bit of guidance mostly because her great ideas were too big for the short time we had left on Christmas vacation. Here we are testing it out.

Biscuit Pizza

I'm bringing Helen home for lunch to be sure she takes the time to eat and give her a little support since lunchtime supervision at the school is minimal and she's a little immature for her age. So far we are having a great time visiting and eating a good lunch. I'm trying to have lunch prepared for her so this time Walker was able to do lunch prep with me and the mini pizzas were a super hit with them both.

Thankful Tree

Happy Thanksgiving!

This year I saw this tree idea at a friends and it was so easy, we had to do it. We made leaves and the idea is to write something down when it comes to you that you are thankful for and you'll see your tree with more and more leaves on it. You can read the leaves on Thanksgiving and recall your thankfulness later. I admit I had a hard time stopping myself from the busyness of life to put leaves on the trees (I've got to get better at that!) but the kids enjoyed it and stopped to write on them. I'm going to re-purpose this as a Jesse Tree for our lead up to Christmas.

Wild Woods

This week-end we went to the forest preserve by our house Sat and Sun. The dog and kids had a blast and we adults enjoyed it too. It was warm enough to enjoy the outside tromp through the woods. The kids even had a splash day in the puddle left from overnight rain. No one complained afterward and they were all smiles about getting super muddy. Poppy had to talk me into letting them but I'm glad he did.

Pumpkins

Poppy helped out with the pumpkin carving this year. Actually he basically did it all so I was free to help with kids clean out their pumpkins and harvest the seeds. The kids made their own designs, I think they did an excellent job! We soaked our seeds and Poppy made a delicious sugar and spice coated roasted pumpkin seed recipe. Next year we may do a few more pumpkins just to make the seeds!

Ice Skating

Carys is learning to ice skate. Actually the entire first lesson the kids practiced learning how to fall on their bottom. They did pretty well with that. This has caused a bit of an issue with Helen. We have removed all activities except piano and AWANA. Not to punish but to give us more time to concentrate on her reading. Next year I anticipate I'll be able to post a picture of Helen ice skating, then we can go as a family, I'm so excited!

Alphabet and Spelling

Walker has moved past letter recognition to letter sounds and I'm trying to introduce sounds put together as words. Right now, we are mostly focusing on sounds.

Leaf Rubbing

Leaf rubbing, an OLD kids activity has been revived in our house. It's something simple I've not done in a long time, even when the girls were little. I love finding simple activities for us at home, I just have not found enough!

Now they can read

A few weeks ago, Carys woke up wanting pancakes for breakfast (Actually this happens almost every morning). I told her she needed to help out making them. She was happy to help and she actually did the bulk of reading the recipe, finding ingredients and measuring. I think all I had to do was cook them on the stove. She's probably close to being ready to do that but I want her to get a little taller since we have a gas stove. Of course, we had a flour spill (I tried my best not to get too overworked about it). Overall, she made me proud that morning. It reminds me I need to make more time with Helen and Walker. I want them all ready to participate in our work at home when we they are able.

Helen and Walker play

Helen loves to play with Walker. She is enjoying her moments as an older sibling.

Blizzard 2011

We only got outside for a few minutes today. Walker was very upset he could not hold the shovel with his gloves on. The girls climbed snow drifts and rolled down them, met a new little neighbor girl and buried each other in snow. Cullen shoveled snow and used his snowblower on the whole block for two hours today. We were happy to come back inside, get warm and eat gumbo and chocolate chip cookies.

Walker Digging

As I said in my previous post, I'm trying to find kitchen activities for my cute, mischievous and curious little boy. I settled on a bean box, after seeing something similar on a montessori blog. I already had beans he could transfer and scoop up with his front loader but I wanted to try to contain them a bit more (ha!). So I got more beans and pasta and found some small toys to hide inside the beans for Walker to excavate. This goes pretty well and does end up with beans on the floor. Another small price to pay for 15 minutes of controlled activity for my two year old.

Walker Painting

Walker is very ACTIVE. Basically at home all day we are busy bees. I've learned it pays to be constructive with our energy. At least, it still ends in a mess, but it's usually a controlled, anticipated mess. So I'm on the hunt for activities we can do in the kitchen, since that's usually where I spend most of our mornings before lunch and nap.

Carys participated in Walker's first watercolor experience. I have to say it could have been a LOT messier but he did a fair job of getting paint on the paper as well as his body.

Alphabits

Homemade Play Dough

It took me a long time to build up the desire and courage to make play dough. I don't like to make things if I'm not sure how they will turn out. But since I've begun baking, I'm a lot more willing to try and see and just live with the results. So I searched the web and found an excellent recipe for play dough and it works wonderfully. The kids has a fun time with this. Plus their uncle had already given them a big box of cutters and tools from play-doh. Walker actually helped me make a batch, just because he wanted a taste most likely. He did not like it at all. The girls helped clean up at the end. A perfect activity for three.

Christmas Baking

The whole gang participated in baking and cooking our holiday morsels. I've been cooking pumpkin and banana bread for church so I decided to give gingerbread a try. The recipe I used worked out, I think my cookies were a bit thicker. But I think with practice in a few years, I'll be pretty good with gingerbread and hopefully able to put together a homemade gingerbread house with the girls.

Sledding

The sledding hill was fun on Christmas Eve. We took a walk to the local coffee shop for a coffee and hot chocolate while he snow lightly fell. The sledding hill was fairly empty and Poppy decided to take the kids sledding. It made my heart skip a beat to see my little ones careening down the hill but they were all smiles and little Walker wanted "more sled"! We need to get another sled for next year, the girls are not afraid to go it alone now.

Outside

Walker also has a blast outside and asks more than the girls ever did to go outside. Of course, right now it's more grunting and pointing but he KNOWS OUTSIDE.
Many days, we are at the park 2-3 times. He loves to climb and is learning to slide.

Worm Hunters Extraordinaire

I cleaned out an area to be completely devoted to vegetables this year. The girls enjoyed excavating in the dirt, many ant mounds were located, roly poly's were relocated and more than a few worms were unearthed. The girls had a TON of fun and Helen found the biggest worm I've ever seen.