Saturday, February 18, 2012

I Love....A Valentine Tribute

 I love making things that beautify our home... 
 this was fun and simple first saw the idea HERE
I love finding things that our kids enjoy doing....
 We made a 'holiday themed' sensory tub!
it started with two separate colors...with just a few items
 
a few items were added over the weeks

 I love watching this kid eat!
 and I must say he loves it to!
 I love watching moments like these! 
(story time takes up more and more of our day lately. Cole used to make it through half a book, and then he wanted to play. Now all he wants to do is read!) 

 I love that Lucy brings the nativity into every day of the year. 
This her nativity scene; baby jesus is under there somewhere :)
 She loved this, until it turned rock hard and she couldn't play with it anymore.
 I LOVE Lucy's random outfits :)
 I love this kids smile!
 And everything else about him.
I love that Cole likes to get messy when we paint
 



 And I love that Lucy has to say clean the whole time!
 reaching for more paint
 cleaning off her tow
 he decided that eating it was more fun

 
"are you sure I can't eat this??"



 I love how he 'poses' for the camera!
 I love her cheesy smile
 I love it when I attempt to make fun meals and they turn out like this! hahaha, pink rice with heavenly chicken and asparagus....at least it tasted good!
 I love how Cole "drinks" his milk
 and then spits it out...
 then he looks at you as if he didn't just spit it all over the place
 I love that Lucy likes to do 'homewort' like daddy at daddy's desk!




And I LOVE this man! and all his goofyness :)

Wednesday, February 8, 2012

Alphabet Days (SUPER LONG POST!)

So we've been working on our alphabet. Lucy can sing the ABCs by herself, but her letter recognition needs some help. 

I'm KIDDING!

She is only 2 :) I don't expect her to know her ABCs already, but I would like her to start becoming familiar with them. We've only done A and B so far. But we have had fun and she is already starting to ask me what certain letters are. She will also pretend to write and she'll say random letters as she scribbles! 
Today we were at Daddy's school and she saw the Y on the hill. She pointed and said, "Yooke, mommy, a X!" She was SO excited to see it. I had to tell her it was really a Y and it stood for BYU. She called it an X a few more times, then she called it a Y. 

Here is the list of sites that I got our ideas from. I am not very creative when it comes to coming up with these things on my own, so I am INCREDIBLY grateful to others who post their creative ideas for me to use! 
OopseyDaisy Alison has a BUNCH of super fun lesson plans. She is very thorough in what she covers. She was a 1st grade teacher and is now a stay-at-home mom. Love her blog!
No Time For Flashcards has a list of upper and lower case letter activities. There are some cute ideas on here too!
Totally Tots has an Now I Know My ABCs section with books and activities to use for each letter! Our library never seems to have these books, but we have used the activities and found fun books while searching for theirs.
Making Learning Fun has some fun ideas for activities and printables to go along with popular books. 
There are probably other sites that I have gained inspiration from, but I cannot remember them...So, if anyone finds them PLEASE let me know so I can give due credit! Thanks!

A
Our first A activity: "Ants on my As"
I cut out an upper and lower case A. We glued it on the paper (with a glue stick) and stuck our fingers on ink pads (I only had pink and purple-they were given to me) and put them on the As. 
Then we added little legs and antenna to the fingerprints to make ants! 
I think she had more fun with the ink than making them into ants. 
But its all about the process, right?

 We made an Apple Tree! Oh my, Lucy LOVED this! I told her I had a tree for her to color and she said, "Oh, Thanks Mommy!" "I color a tree?" I wrote As on the trunk and the tree top and she scribbled over them while she colored the pieces.
 The 'apples came from some christmas pom poms that were falling apart. This was her first time using normal glue and she thought it was SO much fun.
I spelled out "apple tree' while I wrote it and Lucy wanted to write the words too. This was so much fun.

 Next (and as in next I mean five minutes later) we made and ANT! When we finished the tree Lucy looked at me and asked 'What else?' So I asked if she wanted to make an ant and she got very excited! I pulled out her paints and let her pick the colors. Three colors of brown held her over for a while, but when she got to the head she decided she wanted some variation!
 Our ant got some yellow, blue and green on it too!
 Little man didn't want to feel left out...so he played with everything while attempting to climb up on the table and over to the paint!
 Our finished 'beedle'...or ant. She calls it a beetle :)  
(and the rag used to wash hands became her 'Mary' hat)
Little man got his wish....a wet paint brush.
The ant activity took a little longer than some attention spans would like, so I think when we do this in the future I will pre-cut and put together the pieces and she/he can just paint them. 


B
 To introduce our Bs we made some blue bubbles (using food coloring and a little bit of bubble mix) and using a straw colored our Bs!
 Munchkin thought it was a blast!

 The bubbles stopped getting blown when she discovered she could make bigger bubbles by blowing into the bowl!

 We did have and incident of inhalation (hehe, i shouldn't laugh, but it was pretty funny) she quickly learned you only blow out with bubbles not in :D
Our Bubbled Bs

Our next B activity was making butterflies!
We used coffee filters, some pipe cleaners (chenille), and finger paints. 
I didn't get pictures of her coloring them (drat) but she and little man really liked getting their fingers all goopped up with paint and smearing it everywhere :)


They now decorate our fridge! I love them!

Our other B activity (we're doing a couple more the next couple of days) was putting together a mini version of "We're going on a Bear Hunt". Lucy and Cole LOVE this book! I had never heard of it before (Devin knows the song) and we have had so much fun reading the book and doing different activities with it. 
 Here we are gluing on snow flakes to the snowstorm page.
Well, that's all for now folks! We have been having fun with our letters. I'm exited for the activities we have coming up!

Finding God's Beauty in Life

When my Dad passed away last May my wonderful mother-in-law got me this plant. Honestly, I didn't expect this plant to last for very long. I have never been able to keep indoor plants alive. 
 It has been sitting in this window for 9 months now.  
At the time it had dozens of beautiful flowers like this
It continued to bloom throughout the summer. Then fall came and it's blossoms came more sporadically...a few times it looked like it was giving up and I would water it and pick off the dead parts. I was sure it would die.
But I believe there is something special about this one....
it must like me or something. 
I don't water it as often as I should...it really doesn't get that much sunlight in this little window...and still every now and then, 
it gives me one of these beautiful little flowers.
 It reminds me of our Heavenly Fathers love for each one of us, of His power and grace. That he would care enough to not just keep this plant alive, but blossoming in the dead of February...I am so grateful for these little reminders that seem to come when they are most needed. 
These little blossoms rejuvenate me.
They help me to be happy and to have patience.                                        
Look at all those little beauties!


They remind me 
to see God's beauty in all things. 






Friday, February 3, 2012

I've got the itch....

I've been wanting to cut my hair for a while....since it started falling out when Little man was 5 months old (he is now 10 months old). But I've enjoyed having it long for so long I'm afraid to go short again. Since I was die-ing for a change around New Years, I cut some bangs. I LOVE them, but it just wasn't a big enough change.

Reasons I'm afraid to go short? 
~ Honestly I don't know why I would be scared to cut it all off....I've had short (and I mean short short) hair most of my life.
~First well, Short takes time, you can't just throw it in a pony tail and be done.
~Second, it won't keep me warm (but if I'm always putting it in a pony tail it's not adding to my warmth anyways. )
~Third, I don't know how my poor kids will react. My hair is Little Man's comfort.....When he is sad and I hold him, the first thing he does is reach for my hair....he plays with it while he eats (nurses)....Munchkin has recently started playing with it when I hold her too..
~ Sometimes I still love my hair. But those days are becoming fewer and fewer.

Why do I want to cut it?
~ I feel like my hair is too thin to have long....Just doesn't look as full as it did before it all thinned out.
~ It gets all tangled when I wear it down, and so I end up putting it in a ponytail.
~ Kids are constantly pulling on it...Cole thinks it is his handle.
~ I just want something different.

So...that is what I'm thinking....
Here are are my favorite styles....
Love Sandra Bullocks hair, and our face shape is the same so her short hair tends to look good on me...This would be a simple bob. Not very many layers, which is the only drawback to this one. And easy to style, curly or straight. 

 I really like the texture in this one. and all the layers :)
 This one is just super cute and fun...Don't know if I want to go quite this short though. 
 I just like the wavy, layered look. 
 I cut my hair like this almost almost two years ago....I really liked it So I'm including two of this one. 

SO...
What is your vote? 
Do I cut it? If so, which style do you like best?
Or do I stick it out and wait a few more months?

Here is the most recent picture of my hair



I know...this is a horrible hair picture (but still cute right?)