Countdown Calendar

Jerad and I have a trip coming up and the boys are going to spend a week with their grandparents. They can't wait and they keep asking me how much longer until they get to go to Gram and Papa's. So, we made a countdown calendar. I wrote the number of days on the paper, punched holes in the top, and then gave them a bunch of stickers to decorate the pages. After they were done we hung it on the wall and now they can pull off a page every day until the big day arrives.

Potty Chair Picture

We took Jerad's grandmother to dinner Sunday night after church and she put her handicapped parking permit on the mirror in our car so that we could park closer to the restaraunt and she wouldn't have to walk as far. Wyatt got a little confused and wanted to know why she was putting the picture of the potty chair in our car. I guess I can see where he got that. We explained to him that it's hard from Grandma Fern to walk a long way and this just let's her park close and it's not a potty. Then he seemed fine and didn't mention it again.

Learning to Sew

I got this idea from one of my new favorite books, The Creative Family by Amanda Blake Soule. I freehanded these drawings on some posterboard and then cut them out and punched holes in them. I cut some embroidery thread and taped one end to the back of the picture and then taped around the other end so the boys would have a "needle". They really liked sewing and we'll definitely be doing this on a regular basis.

Unplug Your Kids-Flat

The theme for this weeks Unplugged project was flat. I had a hard time coming up with something to do for this one, but I had this other project in my freezer for a while and figured out a way to make it work. I had seen this project on several other blogs and knew that the boys would love it, so a few weeks ago I put it together and have just been waiting for the right time to pull it out. Basically, I got a cake dome tuperware container and filled it with water and toys and froze it. Then I let them work like little archiologist to get their toys out of the ice. It was perfect timing because we saw our friends in Dallas the day before and he had just gotten back from a dig in Isreal and we talked about how they were doing work like Mr. Cameron.

For the "flat" aspect of the project we talked about how the sides and top of the ice were flat and smooth, but as they got the ice to melt and got their toys out it became bumpy and rough.

They used all kinds of "tools" to get at the toys, paint brushes, medicine syringes, squirt bottles, tooth brushes, etc, but in the end we just ended up pouring warm water on the ice to melt it. It was taking sooooo long to get at the toys.

They had a great time and we'll definitely do it again.

Reece really enjoyed licking the ice
Wyatt was excited about his first "treasure" he found
Seth was most excited about the Donald Duck he found
By the end of it Reece was moving rocks from the porch to the empty tuperware container

Muffin Tin Monday

Our Muffin Tins consisted of:

Tomatos, Mozzarella Cheese, Pretzels, Turkey

Ranch, Grapes, Turkey, Carrots

Popcorn, Popcorn, Blueberries, Chocolate

The boys absolutely love Monday picnics in the living room

Kitchen Bowling

It's raining like crazy today so we are stuck inside. Instead of moping around and watching tv we decide to have feisty game of kitchen bowling! I taped together some cups and labeled them 1-10 and then set them up in our narrow little kitchen. Most of the time I hate our tiny kitchen, but it's nice to know it works for something. The boys had a great time and it worked well to help them in learning their numbers and setting them up in order too. Wyatt and Seth would stand behind the tape I put on the floor and roll the ball and Reece would just walk up to the cups with the ball and knock them all over.

Sprinkles

My parents and I took the boys to a great new frozen yogurt place today called Sprinkles. You get to pick what kind of frozen yogurt you want and then pick all the toppings you want. The best part about it is that it's all self serve. Nothing is back behind a counter so it was easy for the boys to see and pick out what they wanted. You pay by the ounce (37 cents/ounce). So we just let they boys pick what they wanted and then they weighed their cups and we payed. Wyatt got chocolate yogurt with gummy bears, marshmellows, and candy coated chocolate chips. Seth got peach yogurt with gummy worms and peanut m&ms.

Doesn't that gummy worm look yummy?

Unplug Your Kids-Glass

This weeks Unplug Your Kids theme was Glass. First I had the boys look at some real stained glass that my dad had made a long time ago. They thought it was really cool. My original idea was to have them make their owned stained glass from crayon shavings on wax paper. However, I found this other project on dabbled.org where you could color plastic container lids and then shrink them in the oven. It looked really cool and it looked like stained glass, so I thought we'd give that a try. I don't know what I did wrong, but it didn't work at all. The plastic curled up in the oven, but never uncurled. The boys were really disappointed. I think we're going to have to make the crayon stained glass sometime this week.

The stained glass disaster

Muffin Tin Monday-Rainbow Theme

Wyatt has been asking all week if it's Monday yet. He really enjoyed Muffin Tin Monday last week and has been looking forward to it again this week. The theme for this week was RAINBOW.

Our Muffin Tins Consisted of the following food:

(Red) Tomato, (Orange) Carrot, (Yellow) Banana, (Green) Avocado, (Blue) Blueberries, (Indigo) Grapes, (Violet) Raisens, Rainbow Goldfish, Ranch, Turkey, Stringcheese, Pretzels




I bought Slimcados (light versions of avocados) because they were on sale and they were NASTY. They had a metal taste to them and the boy didn't like them at all (even covered in ranch). I won't be buying them again.

Tracing Work

I wanted to start working with Wyatt on tracing his letters and I knew that Seth would want to practice too. So, we headed over to Teacher Heaven (oh boy could I spend a lot of money in that place) and picked up some letter tracing books for them. I got one that I really liked because it starts out with just practicing tracing lines and then moves to tracing circles and then moves to the actual letters. Wyatt is doing really well with it and Seth works at it, but hasn't "mastered" it yet. We do one page a day and we just try to make it fun. I have them trace it with their finger first and then they use a colored pencil to trace the shape.

We Made Butter

Inspired by Chasing Cheerios (http://chasingcheerios.blogspot.com) we decided to make butter today. It was super fun. All you need is some whipping cream, a jar and a marble. You let the whipping warm to room temp (otherwise it takes a really long time) and then fill the jar about 1/2 full and and the marble and shake until the butter forms (about 10-15 minutes). You pour off the liquid (buttermilk) and then rinse the butter in cold water (make sure it's cold or it will melt the buter). Our butter was soooo yummy. We had it with our rolls for dinner.

The boys sang, "Shake Shake Shake, Shake Shake Shake, Shake your Butter, Shake your Butter." While shaking their jars.

Comfort Items

Wyatt never really had any comfort item (other than mommy) that he attached himself to when he was little, but Seth and Reece are so different. Seth found this little pig from the Cheesecake Factory at my parent's house and takes it everywhere with him. He has also started needing the horse that Jerad and I gave Wyatt for his first Christmas when he goes to sleep. A couple of weeks ago Reece found the Big Bird and Elmo toys and now he has to have those to go to sleep. It's so funny to me the things that kids attach themselves to.

The Nasty Ear Biter Bug

Although I'm not certain, I'm pretty sure it was a mosquito, that bit Seth on the ear. It made his little ear swell to about twice it's normal size. He never ran fever and it's back to normal now, but he did look pretty funny for about 24 hours.

Reece's Hat

Reece has really taken to wearing this Round Rock Express hat that we got for free at a game last year. He brings it to me all day long to put it on him when it falls off. He loves it.

Making a Collage

I have an over abundance of magazines (3 magazine racks to be exact). So I decided to clean them out. As I was cleaning I decided to go through and tear out pictures that the boys could use to make a collage. They seemed to enjoy it and it was good activity for them to work on together. I started out by having each one pick out 6 pictures that they liked and then they took turns gluing them on the poster board (left over from a garage sale sign). It took about 30 minutes.

Wyatt's favorite picture was of Shamu
Seth liked a picture of a baseball team mascot (I think it was the Cardinals)
We repeated "Dot Dot, Not a lot" while using the glue
This is the final product. Nothing is complete without Dino stickers.