Picking flowers

The girls and I are on a little mini-vacation at my parents' house.  They are loving it.  The weather has been beautiful, and they've been able to run through a sprinkler (A calls it a water fountain) and splash in a tiny baby pool every afternoon.  At home, we have a small patch of grass for the girls to play on. Here, they have a field to pick flowers (dandelions) in, and they go on adventures in between the pine trees and lilac bushes.  They need few toys if any to keep themselves entertained. Today we make the trip back home.  It will be sad to leave, but we are excited to see Daddy again!

Sister snack

I was recently pinning some ideas for morning and bedtime routines on Pinterest.  I wanted to make a chart for A, to help her get herself ready for both transition times.  I saw a picture of two kids eating cereal as their bedtime routine on this blog and a light bulb flickered on in my head.  We needed a bedtime snack in our routine!

When A was a baby, we'd feed her baby oatmeal and a bottle of milk before bed.  Why weren't we doing something similar now?  (a lot of our bedtime battles revolve around being hungry...for both girls)

We now have a "sister snack" box

I keep this box on the top shelf of A's closet.  (Her room doubles as the girls' playroom)  Every night, unless we've had a late supper, the girls put their jammies on and have a sister snack together before bed. There is a little table with two chairs they can sit on. Sometimes I'll read them a story or two while they munch.

Our snack box is packed with two types of applesauce (I figured they sort of doubled as drinks) and then some dry snacks packed in snack bags (duplicates of everything).  There are bowls to put the snacks in, a spoon for applesauce as well as a refillable pouch to put baby sister's applesauce in.

 

So far this has been a nice transition to get the girls ready for bed.  I'm happy that it also helps fill their little tummies for the evening, too!

Travel Binders

We went on a four hour road trip last weekend.  With the way I prepared, you'd think it was a 16 hour ordeal, but we were only in the car for 4 hours.  I had a few friends ask for details, so here they are.  There is more to come!
 (be sure to scroll over the words, I've provided links to the activities)

Big Sister's Binder

1. Highlights magazine, Laminated Kumon activity pages, pencil case with crayons and paper, Wooly Willy, ISpy book with magnifying glass

2.  lacing animals, envelope with plain paper and stickers

3.  Color Wonder coloring pages, We Choose Virtues coloring pages

4.  Color by word apple page, Melissa and Doug Stamp Marker Activity Pages

5.  Tracing page I had from teaching, Kumon coloring pages

6.  Name writing practice (using letter boxes),  cutting practice sheets  

7. gumball stickers   

8.  Butterfly sticker page, Alphabet match-up with abc stickers

9. Hello Kitty/My Little Pony sticker sort, 1-10sticker sheets 

1.sticker activity page ,happy face/sad face sticker sorting

2.sticker shapes,  Color sorting with stickers

3.  Poking shapes with a golf tee (Montessori Print Shop), Letter search (Living Life Intentionally) 

4. Blank reindeer face (I found this on Pinterest and a Google search)

5.  Blank boy and girl (Pinterest and Google search) girl face here

6.letter tracing    

7.  Tracing from Musings of Me (no longer available),laminated Doc McStuffins Tot Pack

8. (more Doc)

9.Mr. & Mrs. Potato head felt activity   

Baby sister's binder

1. Highlights magazine, laminated Kumon pages (with dry-erase crayons), pencil case with paper and crayons, envelope with paper, coloring pages and stickers

2.  Color Wonder pages

3. Velcro Mitten Match (no longer available)

4.  Velcro Animal silhouette match (can't find the link!)

5. Blank faces

I'll update soon with what was in our TRAVEL BOX!

Work in progress...

Excuse the mess, and missing widgits and whatnot. I am working on cleaning this space up. Be back soon!

Our Advent Calendar

There were SO many great advent calendar ideas on Pinterest, that it was hard to decide on just one!  I ended up printing this cute little Christmas tree from here, and the blank calendar from here .  I just wrote in an activity for each day.  I have plenty of books from teaching, so we actually read one book and do  one activity each day.  It's nice to have the calendar in front of me, because if I don't have all of the supplies ready for one activity, I can look at another day and do that one.  

One of the first activities we did was a "paint with water" velvet picture. I got this one at Wal-Mart for just under a dollar.  (It's a great idea to go right after Christmas and stock up for next year, since these items go on clearance and they sell out quickly!)

This was a new experience for A, but she got the hang of it quickly.

Yes,  it's been a very long time.  I had decided to start up with some posts again, and I found out I'd reached my limit for photos on blogger...so I got that figured out and I'm back (at least for now)

Little Christmas treats!

I worked with A and we made cards for her teachers.  She's in gymnastics, dance, and has Wednesday night church classes.  I cut some pieces of watercolor paper and let her dip mini cookie cutters into tempera paint and just stamp them all over the paper.  I later folded them into mini cards and wrote a note inside.

After making the cards, she put together little treat bags.  Each bag had mini candy canes, white chocolate peppermint kisses and regular chocolate kisses.  A candy cane was added at the end.  We used these awesome candy cane tags from here  and A wrote her name on the back. 

She really had so much fun assembling these and handing them out.  Such an easy little gift for a little one to give!

Cleaning Caddy

A has been asking me all week for a cleaning caddy.  I had asked her if she wanted to make one so she could help Mama clean and she was immediately VERY excited.  While I was cleaning up the kitchen tonight, I realized I hadn't thrown one together yet and that I should round up a few items so they would be ready for this week.  

The fact that everything is blue is totally unintentional...it was what I had on hand.  If I was going to make a caddy specifically for A, everything most definitely would be pink...her favorite color. 

Here's what's in the caddy:

-mini dustpan

-a burp rag, to use for dusting

-a scrubber for scrubbing tile or anything else

-sponge and spray bottle filled with a very small amount of water and a drop of soap for spot cleaning

I have an apron all cut out of fabric to sew for her that I may put in here as well.  I hope she likes it as much as she thought she would!