Birthday time

Ah man, I can't believe I've waited a whole month and a half to post about William and Lizzie's birthday party. Better late than ever?? Oh well. Lizzie turned 3 and William turned one. We invited both my family and James' family. It was extremely crowded but I was grateful so many could come. The kids had a lot of fun.

These are actually pictures of the kids eating cupcakes at play group for William's birthday.

My friend posted a picture of a birthday cake with a skittle rainbow and I thought "That is so cute and fun. I want to do that." That's what got the rainbow wheels turning. So the theme was Taste The Rainbow. You'll see.

We made ice in six colors but decided they would just turn the soda brown. Eeew.

The Big Reveal.
I baked two cake mixes in six different pans. So cool.
Party favors: Baby food jars with skittles inside. I loved making these.

"I'm a rainbow king!"

I crocheted this garland especially for the party.

Paper Orbs. I love them.

Cookies, cold, and clouds

After my bad mojo day Monday, we did the letter C and it was crazy!

For lunch, we really rocked the seas, I mean C's. Carrots, corn, chocolate chip cookies, cold milk, chicken nuggets, and chips. Later we had crackers. Seriously, I feel like a genious on days like this.


For breakfast we had cheerios in our chair. For dinner we had chicken and cheese crepes. They were awesome.

We wore our favorite colors or clothes. Lizzie wore pink everything. Edin worse his orange shirt and army guy pants, and I wore my Muss shirt. Go Utes.

I thought I would do this totally creative thing and make a color wheel on the floor with tape and put toys in the sections. It lasted about .3 seconds but it entertained me.

We crawled and chased, and chewed, and colored. We clicked, clipped, cooked, and called our grandmas. Unfortunately it was cold so we had to wear our coats.

I wish every day could be as cool as the letter C.

Muffins, money and macaroni

M was 'mazing. I had so many great ideas that I didn't get to all of them.

We made muffins with lots of mixing for breakfast. (They were poppy seed. My favorite.)




We pretended to be monkeys and mice. Riduculous.

We wrote letters and mailed it to my mom. (I also made an origami cat because she likes them.)

We talked about money for about five minutes because that's how long they payed attention. I thought it was going to be so cool so show them a 10, 5, and 1 dollar bills, plus a quarter, nickle, dime, and penny. Yeah, they just didn't think it was as cool as I did.

Lizzie got to play make-up, which she loves. We got this monkey lip gloss from the dentist office.


For lunch we ate more muffins, macaroni noodles with mustard and mayo (for Lizzie only,) and marshmallows. I thought it would have been fun if I had made a menu for the to "order food" off of but that didn't happen. For dinner I cooked home made macaroni with red peppers and bacon on time. It was awesome.

Our movie of the day was Muppets go to Space and maybe we also watched the "minions movie," Despicable Me. Maybe...

I wish we had time for mopping, making music, mashed potatoes, mazes, marbles, memory, and Mexican food but we had a full busy day!

Oh yeah, we did this all on a Monday. Wahoo.

Y do you ask?

Edin: "Why starts with Y." "Well, actually why starts with W.W-H-Y. Strange, I know. "

The day we did Y was Williams birthday. (More about that later.) So we wore yellow, made yellow cup cakes, and went to play group. It made a huge mess but they were yummy!

We played in the yard and yelled like yaks.

We also played with yarn all over the house. It's one of my favorite things but it also freaks me out because we have a major fear of kids strangling themselves.

Finally, we're teaching William about "yucka." That's the general word we use to mean "That's gross, don't do that/touch that."

Can you tell the cup cake is yellow? Bad light.
Oh yeah, we brought balloons, too. So fun.

V is very extrordinary

I wasn't jumping out of my seat for V but we did think of a few things.

Namely, the kids helped me vacuum. Wee! Or as the Russians would say "vee!" Hahaha

We ate Van Camp beans and vegetables for lunch with a vine growing fruit, raisins. i was really stretching it.

I was born in Virginia so that was fun to talk about. Valentines were viewed and we talked about volume. This wasn't my best work, let me tell you.

This is what William does when we vacuum. He clings onto our legs and follows us around until it's over. He's not a fan.

Bazinga

The letter "B" is really common and I thought I could make this day really fun but I was having kind of a bummer day so we didn't get to all the things I wanted to do.

Playing baseball, basketball, and bouncy ball would have been so easy and fun but we didn't do those things. I thought of some other things though.

We got a basket and walked about to each room picking up things that start with b and putting it in our baskets.

We colored a box like a lion and put it on our head. Rawr!

We read the B book. "Big brown bear, blue bull, beautiful baboon blowing bubbles biking backward bump black bugs banana boxes..." and so on. There is only one word in the whole book that doesn't start with b: and. It's a really fun book to read with the kids.


We all wore brown, black, or blue. I tried to get Lizzie to wear her black batman shirt but she was NOT interested.

Our baby brother (William) carried around his blanket and binki all day. He's such a softy. Here he is reading books.


I wish it had been warmer outside. Blast that snow! I wanted to take them out to blow bubbles, ride a bike, and chew bubble gum. As it was, we took a bubble bath!

For lunch, we ate black beans in a bowl, brown bread with butter (wheat), big carrots in a bag and berry sorbet. I wish we had bagels but you can't have everything.

Edin got to do his favorite thing and that was to shoot arrows at the bulls-eye with this bow and arrow. It bends just enough without breaking.

Lizzie and Edin also had a lot of fun playing in baskets with blankets, pretending they were in boats.

And finally, we watched the "Buzz movie," played blocks, ate beef for dinner, and I crocheted them bracelets.

Here's the kids standing in front of a pink beetle. I love it.

What a busy day!

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!

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