A Good Laugh

The kiddos have been really into animals lately. Identifying what they are and the sounds they make. Well, last night I'm making dinner and completely oblivious to the mess that Addison is making in the family room. Jeff gets home and witnesses it. Addison has unzipped one of our cushions on our oversized chair and is removing the stuffing. She says "sheep in pillow, daddy!" Definitely cute and funny...or is it?! We'll see if this becomes a new "game" in the next few days. :)

"Play Necklaces"

Yesterday Mardi Gras made it's first appearance in our home via Aunt Barb and Uncle Matt. As you can see here, the kiddos wasted no time at all taking out all the fun new accessories.




Lucas was first intrigued with the necklaces...he didn't miss a beat as he would see one in the box...yell out "blue necklace" grab it, then "red necklace" grab it...and so it went.




Until of course, he saw the hat. Then the necklaces came off and the hat went on. He was definitely interested in how it made noise (for at least 2 seconds) and then it was back to the necklaces!




As you can see, Addison was also quite excited by the necklaces. She definitely kept pace with Lucas (not wanting to miss out on any necklaces of course!).





That is until she found the purse with money!! And then it was all about the money...no more necklaces for her (well, maybe just one...)

Is it true that possession is 9/10 of the law?!?

In the end, Lucas made out with the most necklaces. Addy was just happy to have her money! :) So today I kept hearing from each of them "play necklaces, mommy?" Definitely a hit with them for sure! Thanks Barb & Matt!

In other news, we are finally starting to make some "visible" progress on our home addition. Here is a picture right after our beautiful redwood tree was removed. Our yard is definitely more open and gets a lot more sunlight.

And here is day 1 of "prep" work for doing our foundation/basement. I say "prep" work as we still haven't gotten our final building permit, but our foundation contractor is chomping at the bit to get started (like we aren't!). We'll keep you posted.

Back in January, one of the moms in my Moms' Group came up with a wonderful idea of doing our very own "renegade" preschool. We find a location, purchase our own supplies and then teach our own lessons while still giving the children the experience of a preschool at a fraction of the cost.

Sign me up!!

The pressure to send your kids to preschool at an early age is very strong here. Plus, the cost is pretty scary too. Then, multiply that by two kiddos and it's down right frightening! So this idea was very appealing to me.

Pictured above is our first day. Week 1 we discussed the classic (well, at least it's a classic in our home!) "Brown Bear, Brown Bear" by Eric Carle. We discussed the Red Bird, the Brown Bear and the Blue Horse.

Week 2 we discussed Things We Love to go along with Valentine's Day. Unfortunately, I neglected to get any photos of our adorable Valentine's Cards we made before I mailed them out. Sorry...but then again, maybe you were the lucky recipient of one! :)


Week 3 I taught the concept of Rain and Rainbows. We read "The Little Cloud" by Eric Carle as well as "What Makes a Rainbow" by Betty Schwartz. We colored rainbows and made our very own Rainstick!



Week 4 we discussed the concept of Up and Down. We read a couple of books dealing with this as well as sang "The Itsy Bitsy Spider". So of course we needed to make some spiders to go along with the song! And being the particular person she is, A felt hers needed one green leg! :)

Week 5 we discussed Birds. To go along with this theme we made these fabulous bird feeders out of large pinecones, peanut butter and birdseed. (Ironically, the very same day we made these, we were also cutting down our beautiful Redwood tree to make room for our home addition. So sad.)

Week 6 we discussed Caterpillars and Butterflies. We read "The Very Hungry Caterpillar" by Eric Carle (do you see a trend here? It is my belief that he writes fabulous toddler books...or at least L&A think so!) You may notice that one butterfly is a little more "spot on" than the other. A was more into putting the glue on the pieces than on actually placing the pieces together. Whereas, L preferred putting the pieces together. Together they make a great team (well, sometimes!)

So this has become our "new" activity in our regular routine. They both really seem to enjoy it. In fact, we'll be driving there and still be 2 blocks away from the school building and they both start chanting "school, school". I'm excited to see where it will lead us. I'll be sure to keep you posted...