Nap Time

Winter Warm Up

We have had a mild winter and have even been able to use the playhouse this winter!  Of course, we need to go outside in style...

Cinderella Bride and a Bat...

 one girl is to old to go out in costume, she had to put her clothes on to go out(a little sad to see her grow up)...

A Great Day

Dh had a mini-conference with R's teacher this morning.  We didn't schedule a second quarter conference because we knew what was going on with R and we were also on vacation then.  Well, coming home from vacation and the year more than half over had me wondering how she was doing.  Dh went in this morning and got great news!  R is doing fabulous in school!  She is blossoming in her reading and excelling in her reading comprehension.  Her spelling has improved greatly and is stronger.  Math is still her weak subject, but she is doing good...she is average in her class in Math.  The Vision Therapy is helping her teacher said, she can see when she reads she is able to focus with both eyes and does not turn her head to the side.  Also, her handwriting has improved.  She said to keep up what we are doing!  So proud of R and all her hard work!

Dh told me R is successful because I am a great mom who works hard with R to help her succeed.  That was nice to hear.  Then I realized (at 11am) that I forgot to pack R a snack for today.  I guess he spoke to soon;)  It was the first time I forgot to pack her snack all year...I made it over 5mths without forgetting so I hope R understands(I know someone will ask why she doesn't pack her own snack and that is because she typically takes fruit and fruit dip, veggies and dip, or cheese and sausage.  I like to put it all in a freezer thermos and package so it stays fresh and doesn't touch.  I'm anal-thats why she doesn't pack her own snack yet!).  R got in the car after school and told me she didn't have a snack.  She said it was okay because a classmate brought his birthday treat and they got to eat it for snack, donuts!  I told his mom thank you when I saw her tonight!

After that great news I got to pick up Kb & Kg from preschool and play outside...

add a school carnival at R's school tonight and it was all around a great day!

Kb & Kg Visit to the Dentist

We went to see the dentist, aka Uncle Ned:)

Kids did great!  Kg has a wiggly tooth!  Kb's teeth are all stuck tight still!

Happy Valentine's Day!

Thank you Pinterest for another cute idea!  

Some heart signs for the kids doors when they wake up Valentine's morning because you can never tell kids positive things about themselves to often...

R...

 Kg...

 Kb...

Valentines...

Valentines are a month long process here.  We start by deciding what we want to make.  I started years ago when R was in 3yr old preschool giving her a choice as to what she wanted to make.  Since then we have continued(with the exception of last year where I gave them an idea and went with it).  Kb & Kg started preschool and that made three choices to be made (past Valentines here and here are a couple) This year we discovered Pinterest and it was fun to find ideas there and let the kids choose.  I also like that they chose easy to make Valentines;)

After the decision was made we shopped for the supplies we needed.  Now, a more detail orientated mom would have noticed that Kb's would have looked better on white card stock rather than letting him pick a color.  Ow well, he likes them and they are cute!

Then we spent two days cutting out 16 Valentines each(one day for R, she didn't mind cutting that many at once.  Kb and Kg got bored half way through and finished the next day).  

Then a week to write names for Kb and Kg.  They wrote their name on 2-3 Valentines a day.  That was just enough.  R wrote her name and her friend's names in two days.  What a difference a couple years makes!  I remember her not wanting to write that many names at once two years ago in preschool!

Finally, we assembled!  This is what they made...

Kb wanted to make "superman" Valentines as he refers to them.  They say Have A Super Valentines Day

R said she didn't want to give candy because she can't eat a lot of the Valentine candy usually given now that she has braces.  We found this cute idea with bounce balls.  Valentine You Make My Heart Bounce

Kg loved the flower Valentines.  They say Happy Valentines Day

(R made these in preschool too:)

I saw this cute jar idea on Pinterest.  You take mason jars and make them fun colors with modge podge, food coloring and water.  They are harder to make than they look(at least for us).  First time, we didn't use enough modge podge and second time we used a little too much I think(the top rim didn't try completely clean).  Kids love them and are using them as teacher gifts!  They decorated some pencils to put in the jars and wanted to use Valentine M&M's(I tried for the candy hearts with sayings, but was voted down).  

Happy Valentine's Day!!!

Sunday morning we met up with some friends to go bowling.  Bowling + pizza = a fun couple hours!  Imagine 10 kids ages 9-3 bowling along with two little ones to young to bowl watching, six adults bowling and two more watching because monitoring the chaos seemed like a fine idea instead!  Kids were awesome!  They all had a lot of fun bowling and it was a great time!  Thanks for meeting us Schultz's, Schweitzer's and Greening's!

R Has Braces!

R has braces!  She seems so grown up overnight.  R did great at the orthodontist.  We know someone who works there and she told us after R's initial appointment where her molds were made and such that she did amazing!  She did great again when she had her braces put on.  R told me she was telling a friend at school that they "took the metal brackets from a paper package and glued them to her teeth".  Her friend said that sounded gross, but R didn't really think it was so bad(her words).

She is so happy and is really enjoying the braces(yeah!).  She was told she could pick any colors for the bands...she chose yellow and green(Packer colors)!  Our little girl isn't quite so little anymore...

Valentines on the Brain

It is officially February and we are thinking Valentines Day here already!

Today Kb asked me to cut his grilled cheese in the shape of a heart.  Well, it is heart-ish...

We played a letter matching game with capital and lower case letters.  Kb and Kg LOVED it!  They took turns picking a letter pair for one round.  That was way to easy so we then played a game of I Spy.  I would say, I spy with my little eye the letter ___.  Kg was in front of the capital letters, Kb in front of the lower case. They would see who could find the letter fastest.  Whoever did won the pair.  They were so sweet that they took turns getting the pair no matter who found the letter first!  Really, I think it was the heart shape paper, they never get this excited over letter games...

 The kids all picked what Valentines they want to make this year.  We are going simple...cute out a pattern and attach it to a sucker for Kb and Kg.  R doesn't want to do candy(more on that in my next post).  Kb and Kg started cutting today...