Pictures Update

I haven't felt blog-inspired lately, I've even spaced out my last couple Thursday Thesicles, but I thought I'd do a little update in pictures of what we've been up to... in order to keep our virtual scrapbook up to date. Enjoy.

We've been...

playing in the snow

dressing up

looking at DC from Kierra's office roof

making volcanoes 

playing horseshoes on the balcony

dressing in astronaut gear

hanging out at Air and Space

driving a Cessna "to Idaho"

making colorful music

visiting the firehouse

trying out the ladder truck

and the outfit

and the ambulance

polishing off the hot cocoa

building racecars

using bell peppers...

to make St. Patty's day art

cracking each other up/picking our noses

eating plenty of sandwiches

learning about vowels while eating bananas

using snow clothes as hockey pads

How Valentine's Day Rocked: Kids, Bacon, and Baseball

Today we had a Valentine's Day party at our house. We spent time decorating for it the past couple days. The boys' art teacher had them make heart mobiles with contact paper, tissue paper, and glitter last week. So we made more of those in heart shapes and put them on windows, stuck Charlie Brown Valentines on windows, and the boys made construction paper hearts and taped them all over as well.

Art class mobile

Making our own

This one we made into a big heart for the window.

Our guest of honor was none other than Alexandra.

At our party we did a little art: scribbled markers on coffee filters cut in heart shapes and then dripped water on them with medicine droppers. The colors slowly spread out, giving them sort of a tie-dyed look. Super easy thing to do with little ones.

Markers on coffee filters

Finished hearts- I also tied yarn or ribbon through the holes I punched
at the tops so they could be displayed.

Next we did some experimenting with candy hearts: The kids took turns dropping candy hearts into various liquids and we observed what happened. We tried cold water, hot water, lemon juice, and water with baking soda that we added vinegar to. The cool one was the soda and vinegar because the hearts danced and flipped around in all the fizz. The hot water melted chunks of the hearts off, and color from the hearts slowly dissolved in the cold water and lemon juice. In case you were curious.

Philip and Alex check out the hearts and liquids.

Everyone was so curious!

Pouring vinegar on them made the hearts dance!

Next, the eight kids had a picnic on the living room floor. Grilled cheese, strawberries, and banana chips. The other three moms and I actually were able to sit down at the table and talk for a few minutes over some soup and sandwiches. The kids were awesome. Even after having mini cupcakes and Rice Krispie treats, they sat on the couch and humored us for some pictures of them all in their reds, pinks, and purples.

Picnic in February!

Rice Krispie treats on sticks with strawberry cake mix,
hearts, and mini cupcakes

Yum!

Can you say Red and Pink and Purple?

Happy Valentine's Day!

Besties

After the party dust settled, I made my gift for Brian: bacon roses.

Yes.

That's what I said.

I saw the picture here online and modified the instructions. I did not take a drill to a perfectly good mini muffin tin as they suggested (to account for bacon grease), but I microwaved the bacon a minute and a half first, and then rolled it into rolls and stuffed them in small cookie cutters on top of the broiler pan, like this:

I found some fake flowers and cut them off and stuck the bacon roses on.

This. Just. Happened.

Brian approved. Then he laced his leftover grilled cheese sandwich with bacon roses and I had made his dinner as well! Pretty sure I just won an award.

Then mini Nationals Bryce Harper and Stephen Strasburg gave me some tulips for the balcony. Super romantic.

And my gift from Brian was a subscription to MLB.TV, so we will be able to watch the Nationals even though we got rid of cable!

After my tulip gift, we took the boys to the playground. They ran around like crazy monkeys, hit baseballs off their new tee, and got covered in mud. Then it was bath time, dinner, and bed.

It's taken Brian and I nine years of knowing each other, but I think we've finally gotten this holiday right: kids, bacon, and baseball.

This was one of my favorite Valentine's Days ever.

Learnin'

Late last Friday I began writing about the good day we had just had. For some reason I woke up that morning wanting to teach the boys everything I could. That was the day that they wrote their stories. It was a good day, full of unusual patience by all parties involved. All day I wanted to be teaching the boys new things. I don’t know that I’ve ever had a day like it before. I didn't care that the house was a giant mess, I just wanted to keep going. The boys were fun and focused and they soaked up everything we did. It started when we were talking over oatmeal and sprinkles about The Gruffalo, as is common for us to do. I told them what a main character is and they figured out that in The Gruffalo, it’s the mouse. I even said the word protagonist to them, but then thought they might get beat up in kindergarten for saying that word, so I toned it down.

They dictated their stories to me, with main characters, settings, conflicts, and resolutions. We did a sorting activity that had them figuring out what various groupings had in common with each other, We did a reading lesson where they learned the sound th and read more and more words. We even did an “engineering” game that I thought up with wooden blocks. And they stuck with it for an extraordinarily long time.

For the sorting game they came up with some silly categories, like "Things I Like," but also "Things with Wheels" and "Things at a Pond."



Pile of cut-outs for our sorting game

Things that go up in the sky

Felines!

Things with wheels

Trying to make towers the same height with the same blocks

Copying each other's patterns

Cityscape!

We watched Sid the Science Kid, which was about eating healthily. So we talked about the food groups and nutrition. Clark ate an entire apple and a half to show off his balanced meal. Cal ate just one slice after first pouting in bed about having to do it. We were going to work on their martial arts  moves but ran out of steam. When Brian came home he took the boys to the grocery store and to the driving range while I went running and vacuumed. I did not do those two things at the same time, just FYI.

All this made me think that I really need to record here some of the learnin’ things we’ve been up to. So here are the ones I took pictures of from the past few weeks or so.

In our little preschool group we did an activity with the book Eating the Alphabet by Lois Ehlert.

Veggies and fruits in a pillowcase for the kids to touch without seeing

Philip did eat his alphabet!

Talkin' textures with Clark and a potato

More veggie and fruit touchin'

Time to color!

Drinking our alphabet via V8 Fusion!

Letters and words tracing

We have a little scribe on our hands!

Being the Gruffalo

Building a baseball field and calling the plays

Made a giant cookie ice cream sandwich cake for Dad

Geocaching with Aunt Bean!

Explaining the tedious rules of Candyland to Alex

How do you break open a walnut, Missy?

How to paint a mini pumpkin: start with three cute pumpkins

What's inside a pumpkin?

I don't really know...about...this....

Be-fanged Clark the Shark!

Final product

How to brush a girl's hair

Tea time etiquette

Pinkies up!

Playseum art!

Aunt Bean's bedtime stories

Watching that astronaut movie (Apollo 13) on TV!
No time to go to the bathroom? Bring the potty chair to you!

Becoming Abe and George

Finding groceries from a list (at The Playseum)

George Washington the supermarket clerk

My friend Susan's cookie craft to go with
the book Cookies by Amy K. Rosenthal

Accompanying chocolate chip numbers activity

And edible cookie pops!

Building a kite with Aunt Bean