A is for aeblskievers

Aeblskievers were the best part about the letter A day. My cousin Becky and I grew up eating them at my uncle Richard's house. We used to see how many we could eat. Back then I was excited when I ate 13. Sick. Even sicker, now I know I could eat like 20. They are that good.

This is the crazy pan you use to make them.

This is William shaking the bowl that used to be filled with them.


These are my favorite plates to eat them with. You break them and dip them in butter and sugar. I'm so glad I bought three of them so I can use one, too. :)


If you've never had aebelskievers, you are really missing out. They are a pancake consistency but they are in the shape of a ball and taste way better. The batter is quite eggy, as the egg whites and yolks are separated and the whites are whisked until stiff but not dry. Then the whites are folded in. The helps them keep their shape.

The rest of the things we did this day pale in comparison. We wore aprons and ate apple sauce and asparagus.

oK

We did K last Monday with our neighbors, the Hawmans.

We hopped like kangaroos,

meowed like kittens,

played with keys,

and read "Cat learns to Care" where Cat helps Kitten get back home.

I wish we had a kite but no such luck.

We enjoyed our "left over" Krispy Kreme donuts from when my mom was in town


and had kool-aid and ketchup with everything at lunch (not hard to do here.)

For FHE we made crowns to be a king while eating "kettle korn"

and went to dinner at KFC. It was so nice to have James home to help me think of new things.






Oh, hello Kermit!

Zzzzzz

Z was kind of a challenge at first. I couldn't think of many fun things to do. In the end we had a really good day.

We made Zebra puppets,

watched Madagascar with Marti the Zebra,

ate "Z" shaped toast,

worked on learning how to use zippers,

zapped each other with our wands,

read about animals in the zoo,

zig-zagged all over the house,

talked about the number zero (kind of a difficult concept to grasp for kids, I think,)

and later for FHE, we'll play Zelda and our old NES.

It wasn't a bad day at all. I really wish we had zucchinis we could eat for dinner. :(

"N" is for Nest

I am so excited to make M & M nest cookies for the letter N today!

and sing notes

and write our names

and count numbers.

For lunch we'll eat nuggets and noodles.

I love my life.

"T" Day

This letter activites really help me appreciate what teachers go through, what it's like to try to come up with new and engaging activities for each letter. I feel inspired each day though and we're having a lot of fun.

For the letter T, we made tamborines with two bowls colored, filled with rice, and stapled together. I was going to tape over the staples but they weren't sticking out anywhere. We painted toe nails, made a clock to tell time, pretended to be a train, made a tower of blocks, sang about a tall snow man and ate tortillas and tomatoes for lunch. For dinner we are having taco salad. I tried to come up with something turtle related but I thought we had enough going on. Later we might tie shoes or something.

I tell you what, I don't know where all these ideas come from but I hope they keep coming. Tomorrow is the last of the straight letters, F. Bring on the fish.

Edin really shaking it. And my crazy pantry...

Our painted toes and the clock showing what time we wake up. 7. Not any earlier, you punks!

Knitting again

At Christmas time, well actually before that for my niece's birthday, I started knitting again. I made a couple of really cute "squash blossom hats" in blue with a green stem. I didn't take any pictures of just the hat so you could see the stem. Darn. But this is Avery. She loves hats.


While looking for a pattern for that hat, I signed up for a regular email. They recently sent an email with a bunch of "monster" patterns and I decided Edin would love it. Then two more nieces had birthdays so I knitted them a monster, each in pink.

Edin's is the poor dejected looking red one. He had already given his some serious TLC, boy style. He takes it everywhere with him, including to bed. It gets dragged around by the feet. Poor Red Monster. I crocheted a blue circle as the eye for his but then I bought beads for the others and he decided he had to have one, too.

The Letter "E, e"

Edin loves knowing the first letter of his name. "E starts with Edin." Lizzie gets pretty excited, too. She knows Elizabeth is her actual name.
-Edin wrote "e" so well, I was totally blown away.
-We talked about body parts that start with E: elbow, eye, eye lid, eye brow, eye lash, ear. I didn't mention to them epidermis, although Edin said "skin?" and I only realized later he was actually right. Haha
-We pretending to be elephants and walked around with big trunks.
-Then we read an elephant book.
-After rest time, I made apple empanadas. I just used apple pie filling but I did make the dough from the recipe.

Edin's handy work

The Alphetbet one letter at a time

I've been feeling a bit guilty about not teaching Edin letters and sounds. I've had the intention to work on/talk about a letter everyday but by golly, I just haven't done it. It seems like a lot of work. But in all honesty, we don't' really do anything everyday and I think I should be feeling more guilty about THAT!

So yesterday I jumped in and started with the letter "H." I plan on going through all the straight letters like his "work book" does: H, L, E, F, T, I. Then the diagonal straight letters: A, M, W, K, X, V, Y, N, Z. Then the Curvies and circles: Q, O, C, G, R, P, S, D, U, J, B.

I started by talking about the letter while we were playing. We'd think of words that start with H. "Horse, House, Hot, Hat, Heavy, Hi, High, Heart...." and so on. I wrote the letter H and put it on the wall. Plus, as we thought of words, I wrote them on the paper with the Big H. (Not to be confused with the restaurant with delicious burgers and root beer.) For lunch we had "hair," (noodles) hot dogs, and hot chocolate. Yeah, I'm clever. After rest time, we played on pbskids.org and played letter games. Our favorite is alphabet falls from Word World.

Today we worked on the letter "L." Lizzie was excited to talk about the letter her name starts with. Again, we started by talking about the letter while we just played in their room. (This is part of my new routine. I need to spend more time on their level, doing what they want to do.) Then we practiced writing the letter and this time drew pictures of things that start with L. I drew a Lady bug and a Lion. Edin drew a lady bug and then drew me with Long Legs. It cracked me up. Just before rest time and while William was already asleep, we made origami lady bugs and colored the dots. We've started Laundry and had Lettuce and a few Leaves of spinach at Lunch time. I didn't have any Lemons or Limes on hand but I'll make Lime-Lemonade after rest time. (I'm really getting into this.) We're also going to color a Leprechaun mobile after rest time, too.

Tomorrow will be the "E." Edin is so exited to be talking about "his letter." We might decorate eggs or eat them or something. I doubt they'll be interested in eating egg plant and I don't have any. I think I'll make fruit empanadas though. (I have apple pie filling and cresants from a tube in the fridge. Easy.) They'll probably think that's pretty cool. Too bad we ate all the pop tarts.

I can't wait for the letter "C" so we can make cookies. I also think I should skip to the letter "P" because I have Pizza with Pineapples and Pepperoni, Pears and Potatoes in my fridge and we could do Puzzles and Play Play dough and take pictures and read the Panda book.

One of the best parts about doing "a letter a day" is that is gets me playing with them and off the computer. I don't have so much time for facebook and reading blogs anymore. That is a major bonus for me. I want to give them the gift of my time.

I know there is always the possibility that I'll poop out after only a few letters. That's my greatest fear with this whole thing. It takes a lot of forethought and planning and I'm not always reliable with that sort. But I WANT to do it. And I can!

Do you have any websites with kid's stuff you like?