Memorial Day Field Trip

 Our Memorial Day was spent at the Herbert Hoover Presidential Library and Museum. We had been there once before when C was two years old but I have been meaning to get back. I don't know why I was struck with the idea to go late Sunday night but I did and we decided to go.

The museum is about 45 minutes from our house and we got there mid-morning. The museum wasn't very crowded and we did the main Hoover history portion followed by their traveling exhibit about The Mob in the 20s. 

I am further convinced after a second visit to the museum, that Hoover was a really upstanding man with a good heart. He was a President who would have been revered I think, had the stock market not crashed. He was dealt a bad hand and did the very best he could. He really had a good heart. I wish someone like him was running right now. 

Then we headed outside for the remainder of the national historic site. It includes the Herbert Hoover birthplace cottage, blacksmith shop, Friend's meetinghouse, school, other historical homes that aren't open to the public and the Presidential grave site. It's idyllic and wonderful. If I ever had a lot of money I would do a wandering production of The Music Man and perform it using the different locations in the historical area. There's even a bridge! 

The setting was wonderful for taking some pictures. We had a little lunch and then we looped the museum again to see more of it. We kind of had to keep moving the first time through (and the second) as it isn't really geared towards children but it was fun nevertheless. 

We went back to "the little white house" (birthplace cottage) because that was what C liked the best and then we headed home. There was a brass band concert starting shortly after we were leaving and the parking lot and grounds were getting crowded, and the kids were getting precariously past nap time and they were hot to boot. 

It was a great educational family outing and I am so thankful to the men and women in our armed forces who have given their lives in service. Without their great sacrifice I wouldn't have had this special day with my loves. 

(Ant)Arctic Party Planning: Pt 3

I am so excited to tell you about the goody bag. I know that some people go over board with the goody bag and it would be SO easy for me to, I swear but I am really kind of proud of the bag we put together without breaking the bank. My goal for the bags were things that weren't complete junk and not too much sugar, but also reflect my guy and his favorite things.

Each bag included a penguin chocolate bar. Which, okay, is sugar. But since this is it I think we're okay. And they're cute!

A polar bear book.

We love the National Geographic Kids Readers and have a lot of them. We are on our second home copy of this book as one met an unfortunate water spill fate. These books are quick reads and full of educational value so I feel great about their inclusion in the bag. Plus there is a picture of a walrus in the book too. Which is awesome. 

Then, the part I am the most excited about. The walrus shirt. My guy actually has a lot of walrus shirts. I am not quite sure how we get so lucky every season to find at least one walrus item, but we have and we'll just go with it. I wanted to make C a walrus birthday shirt and then I got the idea to have everyone get a walrus shirt too! So we made walrus bleach pen shirts. They were so easy and I think they turned out super cute. 

Bleach Pen is still processing here.

1. Pick a shirt. We got ours at Hobby Lobby, with a coupon so they were under $2 each. We did blue for the boys and pink for the girls. Stereotypical certainly, but two of the girls favorite color is pink and that topic is worked into every conversation. C's favorite color is green but blue matched the arctic theme a little better. So blue and pink it is! 

2. Put a piece of cardboard in the shirt so the bleach will not bleed through to the back. 

2.5 *optional step* Draw your design on the shirt with pen or pencil. 

3. Take your bleach pen ($3.02) and trace your design. The bleach pen will come out fast. Bear in mind that the bleach will spread to much thicker lines. You may want a paper towel handy because sometimes the bleach bubbles and you want to wipe that away. I have also seen recipes to make your own bleach gel and put it in like an old glue bottle. That would be even cheaper than the pen, but sometimes time is money and $3.02 seemed quite reasonable to me. 

4. Let the shirts cure. We let them sit for under 2 hours. Basically, when you can see the design on the underside of the shirt, your design is ready! 

5. Rinse the bleach off under COLD water. The gel will have dried a little and you may have to coax it off. 

6. Stick the item(s) in the wash on cold. Then dry them. 

7. Success! A personalized decorated shirt that is one of a kind and permanent! 

I know that C and M will wear their shirts a lot. I have no idea if the guests will really wear them, but they loved them. "Mom! I have a shirt to match C's!" "I want to try it on right away!" Who doesn't need a good pajama/play shirt in their life? I definitely bought them big so they should work for the kids for a long time! 

All finished! C's had a birthday hat, everyone else's did not.

So those three items made up my goody bags. They worked out great! I put them in blue paper lunch bags with their name written on them. I also used those bags to stash their pinata loot. Easy peasy lemon squeezey! And with that I conclude my 4 part Awesome (Ant)Arctic Party posts.

(Ant)Arctic Party Planning: Pt 2

Besides Polar Bear Bowling, Snowball Fight and a water table we had a few more activities at the party.

To start, we decorated our own (Ant)Arctic scenes. Husband printed out an iceberg/water scene. I put out crayons and stickers and let them go to town. C is not usually crafty but loves stickers. And awesome cold weather animal stickers are right up his alley. He had a lot of fun with this actually and it was a great way to keep everyone occupied as others arrived.

I already told you a little about the penguin pinata here. But I did, in fact, plan a pinata. I read on some website about how to have a less chaotic pinata experience by bagging the items individually and every kid takes a bag. While critics of this method think it ruins the fun and promotes the "life is fair" mentality that is ruining our children, it worked for us. Not only was this 4/5 kid's first pinata ever but I was planning on it being an inside activity. *It DID rain on his birthday as I knew it would, but it was earlier in the day and we did wind up going out to the patio*

A little order at the expense of possibly ruining the kids forever was worth it to me. Inside each bag was a bag of fruit snacks, a box of yogurt raisins and a penguin rubber ducky. C's current favorite movie is Cars so we payed a little homage to that. As it happens, they were all terrible at hitting the pinata hard enough to damage it. Baseball players they probably aren't. So Husband eventually broke it in a way where we can fix it up and C is quite happy about that.

The other game I am pretty proud of is our feed the walrus game. This is the one area we went a little overboard with cost wise, but I am totally okay with it because we had the capabilities of going overboard. Husband designed the walrus and one of the companies that he uses for large-format printing at work printed it out on coroplast. (Plastic cardboard just like the stuff political signs are made of.) They even laser cut out around the shape of the walrus and the mouth. It is so great.

I found fish shaped bean bags on Etsy and these little buckets in the Target $1 section. Which pretty much just made the whole thing even better than I could have imagined.

So that concludes the overview of our party activities. If I haven't lost you completely I have one more post tomorrow about the awesome and inexpensive goody bags we had.

(Ant)Arctic Party Planning: Pt 1

When we originally sat down to plan C's Awesome (Ant)Arctic Party, the big question was: what are we going to do with 5 kids? (Our two plus three friends.) I wanted an activity that featured each of the three major animals of the party: Walrus, Polar Beat and Penguin.

During the extensive party prep stage, I found this Arctic Explorer Birthday Party and they had taken a honey bear and painted it for a decoration. Well all the light bulbs went off and I decided right then and there that I was going to make a bunch of them and do Polar Bear Bowling.

In my head I thought we were destined to buy a lot of honey. I was trying to figure out what we were going to do with all the honey because I wasn't going to waste it but where would I keep it? A moot point. After a long discussion, Husband said, "Why don't we just buy empty honey bears?"

Why not indeed? That option wasn't even on my radar but one quick Google search brought me to THESE 8oz Honey Bears. The size bear you would buy in the store is 12oz but I figured it didn't really matter if they were a little smaller. And the price was right. $5.40 for 10 empty bears. They do not come with closures but I didn't need them for my project. I should note here that I did need one closure to paint the bears, but I finished the honey we had anyway and washed that closure for this project.

They came super fast. C LOVED them.  He was so excited!

One night after kid's bedtime I laid out some paper and sat down to work on painting the bears white. Since we did our living room we had some white primer already so I went down the basement and got that.

I took a bear, put about two teaspoons of primer in, put the lid on and shook it all about. It took a lot of effort to coat the whole thing with some vigorous shaking. When the bear was fully coated I held it upside down over the paint bucket. Then on a paper towel for a while to get the excess paint out, for the amount of shaking required I was shocked at how much paint came out in this process. I stood it up right side up to dry and repeated this until they were all white on the inside.

Painting the inside made it so that you could use the black eyes and nose that already come on honey bears, but you could easily spray paint them if you didn't care about keeping the faces.

That is how I made Polar Bear Bowling. Total cost: $5.40 + shipping. A little more if you need to buy paint and closures.

I set up the bowling on our coffee table with a plastic table cloth on top. We used foam baseballs as the bowling "ice" balls. It was a huge success! Perfect for our (Ant)Arctic Party! The actual play of the game was a little harder than I anticipated. But they had fun so it was all good! And the polar bears looked wonderful!

We also had the arctic water table full of blue water beads. We put some of C's Toob animals in, both arctic and penguins and everyone seemed to enjoy that. I love water beads in a sensory table. Hours of fun to be had!

One of our more physical activities was the indoor snowball fight. I just bought a big bag of 200 cotton balls for less than $2, dumped them into a bucket and put it in the middle of the room. And I am telling you it was SO. MUCH. FUN. I really think all ages would enjoy this activity. But buy some more cotton balls if you have more people, 200 was the perfect amount for two adults and five kids 4 and under.

They just ran and jumped, hooted and hollered and it was great. Cotton balls didn't hurt anyone or damage anything. They did leave little cotton strands on my blue carpet but that's nothing a vacuum can't handle! I cannot stress how much fun this would be at a family Christmas or school party.

I will be back tomorrow with more of the activities of the (Ant)Arctic Party.

The Awesome (Ant)Arctic Party

My guy turned 4-years-old yesterday. In honor of him, we planned a super special (Ant)Arctic Party to celebrate him and his love of walrus, polar bears and penguins. It was such a wonderful day and just the perfect way to celebrate C! I 100% admit that while I wanted everyone to have fun, I specifically planned things and details that my guy would appreciate. He did. He didn't miss a detail. And bonus: the three party guests who don't live at our house had fun too!

We kept the food simple because it was a morning party. Arctic Punch. Which was Blue Raspberry Kool-Aid mixed with cheapo Lemon Lime Pop. Blueberries. 

Cheddar Penguin Crackers. Penguin gummies. Which look super cute but also taste great as they're peach flavored! 

And cupcakes, because it was a birthday party. The easiest cupcakes ever. White cake with white frosting in blue foil cups made for our snow and ice. Delicious and easy. Husband designed the walrus, polar bear, Adelie and Macaroni penguin toppers and printed them on synthetic paper so they would just poke right in! 

Last week C's Godmother, Husband and I took a few hours to cut 55 traditional snowflakes and 8 large 3D snowflakes to decorate with. Cheap, handmade decorations that made a big impact. It was magical. It still is, we haven't taken them down yet.

It was the very best party I could have imagined for C. He loved every single second of it. His joy only intensified mine. Gosh I love this kid. And I loved this party. 

I have a series of posts to round out this holiday weekend of ours with some more details of our party, if you're interested. 

Happy Birthday Buddy!

My Wonderful Guy,

I almost cannot comprehend how it is possible you are 4-years-old today. You and I are such a team and it breaks my heart to know that our whole days together are closing fast. In August you will start preschool at the "big school" and you are so excited. I am going to miss you but I cannot wait to watch you bloom!

You have the sweetest, most sensitive soul. You are very susceptible to picking up tension and when people are unhappy. You are a crier, like me. Sorry about that. I hope that you will continue to grow in your ability to use words to express your feelings, but you feel every emotion to the extreme and that is hard. The upside to your big feelings is your propensity for snuggling. Your love language is definitely physical touch and you give the best hugs/snuggles/high fives/wrestles I can imagine.

I love being in awe of your memory. It should probably stop surprising me but it hasn't yet. The things you pick up and remember is astounding. I am going to take some credit for that as well. You spout out some pretty impressive knowledge for just-turning-four and I am thrilled that you love to learn.

This past year you have grown to write your name and draw people but it takes a lot of coaxing and a lot of affirmations to get it done. You just have more important things to do with your time besides drawing and that's okay. Really. You've shown me you can and that's what's important. That's how you and I work though, you decide when you will or won't do something and I just go along for the ride.

You know all your letters, their sounds, the vowels and their two sounds and you're starting to sound things out. I am sure you're going to be a reader, your favorite activity besides animals is paging through books and telling yourself the stories.

My favorite thing in the world is that you still love walruses so much. I never would have ever thought that my 20 month old would have zeroed in on the walrus, but you did. Penguins are giving the walrus a run for their money but it's because penguin books and toys are so much easier to come by! You love them both though and tell everyone that. I know that I went overboard on you (Ant)Arctic Birthday Party, but I couldn't help myself. You have such a unique interest and I want to celebrate that. I am sure there will be super commercial parties in our future, but man I love the creativity of your theme this year.

You came downstairs this morning to see the Arctic land your dad and I created last night while you slept. "I love this birthday party!" And you kept saying it. "This is the best birthday party I've ever seen." And it was little boy, because it was the perfect party to celebrate you. 

When I ask you what you want to be when you grow up you say "A Penguin Doctor" or a "Zoo Doctor." I would not be one bit surprised if that came true. You love animals and science. You have a thirst for knowledge and a tender heart so of course a caring profession makes sense.

On Mother's Day, you came and gave me a hug and said, "I am glad I am your boy." Well, I am too. And I am glad I am your mom. Happiest of birthdays to you buddy! 4 is going to be a great year, I just know it! I love you and you are awesome.

Love, Mom

This Is All I've Got Today

First off, thank you for your prayers. Henry, my father's Godfather passed away early this morning. Even though we have known for a week now that it was very likely, it doesn't make it any easier. He was a very dear man and I am sad. I am however glad that he wasn't in pain, he wasn't alone and he is now at peace. That is something to be thankful for certainly.

In much much happier news, I have to tell you that I got my Backyard BBQ Scentsy warmer today. 

It was billed as a "Father's Day" bundle. And I get it, dads like to grill. Makes sense. But oh.my.cute. I just love it. This warmer sold out in a week and I totally get it. I am kind of whatever on the wax that came with it. The Man scents aren't my favorite. (Well I totally dig Bonfire Beach so 1/3.) 

I don't usually do the whole "warmers for different seasons thing." We don't have holiday warmers that we rotate in and out. If I am being honest, we do have a Christmas penguin warmer, but if you think C would ever let that be unplugged from his room, that's just not true. I don't even usually buy warmers these days. But this little grill is going in my red kitchen for the summer months. Because I love it. And it really is the brightest spot in my day so I am just going to enjoy it. 

Today was my last normal school day!! We did "cooking." Which in preschool speak means we made Chex Mix and Muddy Buddies/Puppy Chow. And we watched Doc McStuffins. And played outside. I brought my A-Game the rest of the year, and I will on Thursday again. But today... they got my C-Game. 

Ignore the apostrophe that has no place there. Trust the sentiment. I wanted a clean version. That's how I say it in my head too. Look at all the Fs I give. 

I will go out with a bang on Thursday. Mark my words. And I will have the blog posts (yes plural) to tell you all about C's (Ant)Arctic Birthday Party. Because you guys, my guy is going to be 4-years-old. 

7QT: Randoms and a Prayer Request

one. I don't know, it may be because I am left-handed, but since we bought our Dyson Ball with wedding money in 2010 I have been annoyed by the cord. It never wraps correctly and I always had to twist the end around the entire bunch of cord to get it to stay. Even with the clip thing.

It's because I am doing it wrong. I twisted the cord opposite of the way I normally do and it ended with the plug coming down, instead of up like it usually did. Game changer. It's probably something that I have done "left-handed" which is my dad's snarky-with-love way of saying that I am doing something not exactly correct. I also stir and slice bread loaves "left-handed."

two. My girl who has never been much of a snuggler has slowly come around to snuggling. It's awesome. She comes in for hugs and kisses. She goes out of her way to come sit with me. Just the best.

three. C brought home one of those siezure-inducing blinking led light balls from school yesterday. They learned about space and I guess it was a star or a meteor or something. I'm not sure. In a weak parenting moment, we didn't take it away last night when he was asleep. The situation has been remedied but not before we had to deal with the blinking this morning.

four. After some frustrating moments of people waking up too early I bought the Teach Me Time clock as recommended by a friend. Last night was C's first night with the clock. He somehow was playing with the clock before he fell asleep and reset the time on it so that it wouldn't turn green until 9:00. (I wish!) But when Husband went into his room he was just waiting for it to turn green so maybe this will actually work? I hope so.

five. Last night we were real life grown ups and went out to dinner with our friends. We had delicious food and a wonderful chat. So great!! It is a rare event so we were all very proud of ourselves!

six. And apparently we are on a roll because we are hosting my friend over tonight for a pizza party. We are also putting her to work on some decorations but there will be good chats and food with the work so it balances out I think.

seven.  I am going to make a long story real short here and say that my dad's Godfather has been in the hospital this week and has moved to a hospice care facility. If you could spare a prayer for him for peace and comfort that would be amazing. He has no remaining blood relatives and we are his family. It makes me incredibly sad to think of this world without him.

I hope you all have a wonderful weekend! Linkin' Up with Kelly today!

Mom-Day

Week in and week out I hang with my kiddos. And they like that. But they LIVE for Saturdays. In our house, Saturdays are better known as "Dad-Day!" They are revered. The kids deeply look forward to their special mornings with their dad and it's basically the best!

So Mondays are kind of hard. Dad goes to work and people are generally disappointed in the prospect of another five days of "real life." Then Mom-Days were born! Mom-Days take the place of boring humdrum Mondays you see. They also, theoretically, make the prospect of Dad going to work slightly less horrible. This does not always work in actuality.

On this Mom-Day we made muffins. In the spirit of open and honest blogging, we make Mom-Day muffins weekly. C gets to pick which kind and today it was banana nut. I was a little surprised by this choice as we had banana muffins last week but I abide by the picks of my dude.

We listened to music and played all sorts of games. Including dump a package of index cards all over the kitchen floor, penguin family and reading stories. Only the true classics at our house.

We played outside. It is cool spring but dry the past few days which is great. So of course we went outside. We planted some flowers and found a worm. We ran. We jumped.

It was fun. Fresh air rocks. 

But then. oh my gosh everybody, the FedEx man came. With a VERY important package. The Penguin Pinata for C's birthday party. 

It currently is living on top of our fridge. (As seen in the photo.) The discussion of making sure we are really gentle with it until the party has been had. We have been watching pinata videos on YouTube to make sure that he understands that the penguin will be broken open at the party. Verdict is still out on how that is going to go down but we'll keep prepping him for it. 

Fun fact: did you know that a few weeks ago the biggest penguin habitat opened at the Detroit Zoo? The Polk Penguin Conservation Center is huge. And pretty sweet. I am pretty sure we have watched the YouTubes a bajillion times and my nearly four-year-old's biggest dream right now besides "Christmas at Disney World" is "The 'Troit Zoo." 

Well after watching more 'Troit Zoo penguin building YouTube videos with our lunch, we played and snuggled, then we went up for rest time. BOTH kids slept which is very unusual these days. 

They woke up only shortly before Dad came home and Mom-Day ended. So all in all, a pretty darn successful day.

I am going to really miss our low-key Mom-Days in the fall. But the preschool schedule is nice, we have Wednesdays off. So I am sure we will fill it with all kinds of fun!

The Thank You Book

If you've been here a few times you probably know that we love Mo Willems. The man can seriously almost do no wrong. (Except for the fold out spread in Knuffle Bunny Free... that was just dumb.)

So it goes without saying that we are big Elephant Piggie fans. It's a series of 25 books. The final book, The Thank You Book was released on May 3. I had it preordered and it came as promised that day. But I didn't open the box.

I couldn't really bring myself to do it. It just seemed so final.

Kind of like this.

But today I gave it and opened the box. And I read the book. And it was good. Piggie thanks everyone who is important to their stories and it is a cute little retrospective for children. (And me.) I may have gotten a little teary as I finished. Elephant Gerald and Piggie are stand up characters who have taught my boy how to wait, recognize when he was cranky, share, make friends, deal with disappointments and other important life lessons. 

My heart is sad that Elephant and Piggie are saying goodbye as characters but I am so glad that there are 25 books in my home that I can go to anytime and hang out with them. 

So as one of the readers, I have to give a big thank you to you Elephant Gerald and Piggie right back double. We love you always.

Hello Friday! We've Been Waiting For You!

one. Let's talk for a minute about tree helicopters. We have a giant silver maple in our yard. As you probably know, in the spring, maple trees drop all their helicopters. As such, our yard in the spring looks like this:

Only a lot, a lot more. Every year, they drop right on or near C's birthday. We have in the past had water parties with swimming for his birthday because that is one of his favorite things. The helicopters don't preclude that of course but they make it annoying. But it has rained every year on his birthday. 

This year we planned an indoor party just because we know it will rain. It just will. It rained the day he was born. It rained when he turned one, two and three. It's going to rain. 

BUT all the helicopters dropped this week!!! Like right now! Two weeks out! So on the off chance that it doesn't rain, which is slim, the kids can at least run around outside and play without a bajillion helicopters all over. Assuming we sweep/mow/rake before then of course. (We will.) 

two. Grace and Frankie. Oh my gosh. Do you have Netflix? I love this show. I love that there was a commercial on during The Good Wife finale for this show. We finished the second season last night and it is brilliant. Super interesting look at people and life. So very funny. I am quite certain that it wouldn't be everyone's cup of tea but I totally dig it. 

three. This article.  Which basically states that people don't appreciate Don't Tell Mom the Babysitter's Dead enough. It's true. They don't. But I do, We quote this movie all the time. Seriously. It's true movie love. And has just become mandatory Friday night viewing. 

four. I am embarrassed to admit that I have lived here for almost six years and have never gotten a library card. My Minnesota library card still works just fine for ebooks and Husband had one for here. But his expired and C has been asking to go to the library. So we are going to try to go get one today. I am not quite sure what two forms of ID they want (and I think it's hilarious that they care that much because even the New York public library just requires a driver's license) so wish me luck. 

five. So the warmer of the month for Scentsy is this camper. Consultants can get the warmer and scent of the month early and I was going to un-enroll for the warmer because I don't camp and I don't really know anyone who does. Well, my mistake, I wound up with the thing anyway! 

And then the warmer earned itself a cult following and sold out in 1 day. Now it is backordered until June and people still keep buying them! So as luck would have it, another consultant bought mine from me. That makes me happy because it is going to someone who wants it and I get my money back. Everyone wins. Well I will for sure when it arrives to the consultant tomorrow and is in one piece. But things are looking good. 

six. We are at the inside out/backwards clothing stage. C cannot be bothered to take the time to put his clothes on correctly. But at least he's dressed? Let's hear it for small victories! 

seven. In bad news, the strawberry patch we've gone to for the past few years is no longer letting children under sixth grade come to pick. AND you can't just show up, you have to make reservations. SO... I am in the market for a new strawberry patch. It's just majorly lame because C has been talking about it already and my kids just LOVE strawberries. 

Happy Weekend Friends! Linkin' Up with Kelly this fine day. 

Good Days

The sun is shining! It is wet outside from last night's rain but the sun is shining and I love it!

Yesterday C had his last soccer class of the session. I really dig this class. The uniform is too too cute and the games they play really teach soccer skills without any real competition. I am not opposed to competition by any means, but this is definitely the kind of 3-year-old soccer I prefer. When he's a little older, and he wants to, I will sign him up for "running in a swarm up and down the field or maybe playing with grass" soccer.

Getting his certificate

M on the other hand, would already be involved in soccer should there be a team she could join at 18-months-old. She LOVES sports and the hardest hour of her week was watching the other kids not play soccer. Every week I would let her out of the stroller and she would grab C's ball and run and kick it. The coach even commented how good she is. "She just got more kicks than some of the kids who actually take the class!" And it's true.

She also throws really well and she can jump already. I don't know what age jumping is actually supposed to occur but it seems ridiculously early to me. I think it's great but on some level I just want her to slow down! I didn't say she could get so big!

Today was our field trip. All the kids practiced saying "May I please have a chocolate fudge sundae?" before we left. 2/3 said their sentence and paid with no problem. I had put the exact amount needed into a baggie for each of them so it would be easy, but we have one super shy kiddo and she wouldn't say a word or hand over the money. But we kind of knew that going in since she wouldn't even practice.

They ate their ice cream, while wearing crowns and then they played for a good long time. It was a super fun field trip. We don't have many of the indoor playground places in this area. The closest one to us is Chick-Fil-A but we really only have one location (that isn't in a mall) and it is always SO CROWDED. I have never taken my kids there even though they have all sorts of special program and things for kids. I would go back to Burger King for sure because it was WAY not crowded and the kids had a really good time.

I feel like May is going really fast! And I have so much to do still!

Penny, Nickle, Dime and Quarter

Oh me oh my.

School is at my house this week. I am in my final countdown for hosting school. I have Thursday and then May 24 and 26. Normally, my friends, I would wax poetic about how I can't believe my little boy is done with 3yo preschool and going to 4yo preschool next year. And so on and so forth.

But people, I am tired. We started our little version of school last April. We absolutely took breaks, but still. In a typical schedule preschool they have 72 days of school. When we are done, we will have had 85. That's pretty good. But tiring.

Anyway, today we learned about Money. Nothing too fancy but my goal was to have them name the President on each of the four main coins, the name of the coin and it's value. We are going to fall a little short on that. I will be happy if by week's end we can name the coins. Well, C is actually very good at it. Nickle, Penny and Quarter he's got down. He has a little trouble with Franklin Roosevelt. But I hope to get the girls up to speed about the names of the coins.

We read The Coin Counting Book.

For math we did coin patterns. Again, C breezed through this one with no problem but the girls had trouble distinguishing between the three silver coins. 

I had assigned homework. I gave each kid a "dirty" penny to give a bath/wash with the dishes and try to clean it. Obviously soap and water doesn't work. So for science we tried to clean pennies with lots of different things: milk, water, vinegar/salt, ketchup, cocktail sauce, Worcestershire sauce, garlic lemon marinade and salsa. The kids were able to slather on the things they thought would work to get them clean. 

After some time we rinsed them off. Water, milk and Worcestershire were the only ones that didn't work. Vinegar/salt, ketchup and the marinade did the best. I should note that I think some of the pennies suffered from being in a condiment for too long and went past shiny and back to black. But the kids didn't care.

To have some gross motor play I set up a coin toss similar to lawn darts. They also had coin rubbing for craft and a coin filled sensory bin. I didn't take any pictures because I was busy keeping things under control. 

Thursday we have a fun day planned of coin stacking and sorting, painting banks (not piggy shaped because those were like $6 each and so I bought little boxes for $.99 and I am cutting slits in the top, reading a story about shopping, writing the names of the money, role playing with shopping and then we are going on a field trip to Burger King for sundaes and then playing in the play place. This will be awesome because Husband is going to be home to help me and then he is staying with M during the field trip. 

Happy Mother's Day

Today is Mother's Day.

I am so thankful to be a mother to my babies.
I love my mom. She's great,

But today we had to say goodbye to The Good Wife and I don't feel emotionally prepared for it. How can it be over?

THAT was the end?

Happy Mother's Day to all of you. I'll be over here processing what just happened.

7QT: Random Roundups

Things are pretty good over here! Plus it's Friday!! So I am going to join Kelly for some QT this fine morning.

one. Wednesday we got word that C got moved up the waitlist for MORNING preschool! All of my concerns about rearranging nap and lunch and whether C would adjust to not being crabby in the afternoon are gone! Hooray! Best news ever.

two. My husband is super handy. A really long story short: we needed a new lighting fixture for our dining play room. I ordered one. My husband put it up last night and I am VERY happy.

three. Have you seen the puppet Great Clips commercial? Well I hate it. Because C find it terribly upsetting. First the puppet can't find his "family" and then he didn't get a haircut and a lollipop. He saw it once. And hasn't stopped talking about it since. With tears.

It came on again yesterday evening and we covered his eyes right away but still... super concerning. It does not matter that I have spent two days telling him the puppet found his family and got a haircut and a lollipop, the kid is convincd that the puppet is still sad. We've got all the empathy over here. He's always been super in tune with people, always a sympathy crier even as a baby.

four. The internet approaches. I had to ask them to move their truck yesterday so I could get C to school.

five. Then M and I stayed out the whole time. We went to the museum but it was super crowded and even though there is an entire area that is for under 4, kids don't read the signs and the caretakers/chaperones etc. apparently don't care. So we went to the park and we had a great time. She is such a good little climber.

They have  little rock wall on the equipment labeled ages 2-4. (I don't know why they label, it's pretty clear which age range each section is for.) Well she would just scramble right up then go down a slide then run around and do it all over again. But she did get tired out and I had to convince her to use the stairs a few times.

six. If I could wave a magic wand I would invent two things. First, an indoor play area for children of some sort that opens at 7:00. While I am not the earliest riser my kids are, and a lot of things don't open until 9:00 or 10:00. That's a lot of my kid's day right there. Especially when morning nap factored in we couldn't go anywhere because by the time things opened it was nap time. This is a solvable problem!

seven. Also, I would build an entire playground for preschoolers. In a perfect world playground developers would understand that little kids want to be big kids so a few dinky slides and a climber doesn't compare to the giant play area over there!

We love our park. (The play area is fenced in now. And there's swings at the red arrow.) And you better believe both my kids play on the "big kid" side anyway but I'd love a larger area for M especially who doesn't realize she's 12 feet in the air and could careen to her death anytime.

Okay. Have a great weekend friends!