San Diego

James had a workshop to attend in San Diego on Tuesday and Wednesday of this past week.  He invited the kids and I to come along, and we had a fantastic family trip!

Tuesday we woke up early and pulled the kids from bed so we could drive to San Diego in time to get James to his workshop.  The hotel let us check in early (at 9am!) and was serving breakfast until 10am, so I went with the kids to get some food before we went off to play for the day.  Our hotel was very close to the San Diego temple, so we went and walked around the grounds there.  A temple worker even invited us to go into the waiting room so that we could at least step inside the temple. 

February happened to be 50% of museums in San Diego month, but the trick was finding a Macy's department store that still had the coupons available.  I went to one by the temple and found out they were out.  They told me of another, but I called that one and they had just run out the day before.  I finally found one in downtown that had them so got to drive through the city and give myself a bit of a tour.

From there we went to Balboa Park which is amazing!  It is where the San Diego Zoo is, and also has 15 museums and many other interesting exhibits.  We went to the International Cottages, but found they weren't very kid friendly, so went on to The train museum and the Botanical Gardens and then stopped at Pepper Grove playground.

The kids were fascinated with the model trains

The Botanical Gardens were beautiful

and I loved the architecture of the buildings around Balboa Park

By this time I had sufficiently worn out my kids.  They fell asleep in the car while I drove along the pacific coast highway and stopped at Mission Bay park.

We picked up James from his workshop and went to play at the beach, and then, after a complete outfit change for both of our wet and sandy kids we went to Sea Port village to watch the boats on the ocean as we ate dinner and then had a ride on the carousel (something James remembers doing as a kid.)

 It was cold and windy, but the kids just couldn't resist playing in the water

As if that wasn't enough for one day, we then went to Old Town where the Mormon Battalion Visitors Center is.  It was completly redone about a year ago and was incredible.  Brielle was fascinated with the story.  Ethan tried to eat the sand from the floor and drink the water from the gold panning river.  Brielle keeps asking to go back.

Wednesday I took the kids to the Birch Aquarium for the day.  When it was time to go get James, I had a hard time pulling Brielle away, even though it wasn't a huge aquarium and we had seen everything twice. 

 Learning about ocean currents was one of the favorite activities

as was this giant board game

We drove home stopping by a Cafe Rio and then after being stuck in slow traffic decided to stop and play at Disneyland while we waited for traffic to die down.  We took Ethan on the Matterhorn for his first time, I wanted to get him on before he turned 2, because I don't think many 1 year olds have been tall enough for that ride.  He was at least an inch taller than the 35" height requirement

 

 

Birds

This weekend is The Great Backyard Birdcount, so we spent the week learning and talking about all different kinds of birds.  I am not a bird watcher and don't know much about identifying birds other than the common birds, so we had a lot to learn.

Arboretum

We kept our eyes our and saw birds everywhere.  In the sky, on the ground in the water.  Ducks, geese, peacocks and other birds that I don't know their names.

 Bird Matching

Gavin is getting the Highlights magazine and was so excited to discover a bird game in there.  We got to play a game of memory and to learn some names of different kind of birds.

Bird Feeders

Brielle and Ethan have been collecting pinecones for the past 4 or 5 weeks and have been SO excited to turn them into the classic pinecone bird feeder

We started by covering them in peanut butter, or in Ethan's case eating peanut butter off the pinecone.  Gross.

Rolling them in the birdseed.

And then went to hang them on the tree.

The Little Red Hen 

sometime in the future I will do a full week devoted to this book.  There are so many fun activities we didn't have time to do, but I wanted to introduce the kids to a favorite classic story.

the kids helped grind the wheat. 

and make the bread

so, they got to eat.  We did a taste test with different kinds.  They liked all of them.

hand-print hen puppets

Bird Snacks

trail mix (nuts and raisins)

fruit

we also had gummy worms for a fun treat, the were a definite favorite.

Bird Math

I found cheesy crackers at target that were in the shape of birds.

Brielle has been very interested in asking me math problems.  I decided to start introducing her to the written form of addition.

Books

In addition to the Little Red Hen books, we had a very large selection to choose from.  Some of this weeks favorites were:

A Mother for Choco-cute pictures, a great book to introduce adoption to small kids

Grumpy Bird-since we all wake up on the wrong side of the bed sometimes, it was a fun way to show how to decide to be happy

Birds-Ethan's favorite.  It had a green bird that he loved to point out.

The best learning book was Eggs and Chicks an Usborne book that talks about how eggs, nests, how birds hatch, etc.

another great learning book The Best Nest, we've read this before when we learned about nests.  Brielle loved it then and still loved it this week.

Other activities this week

we can't go a single day without Ethan looking something like this.  He loves to eat, and he is MESSY!

James' friend from work is having a baby.  I was volunteered to make a cake for the baby shower.

Saturday night we took the train to LA for Lissy's birthday.  The kids LOVED it.

Having a hot-tub in our complex is a favorite for all of us.  Grandma Finlay got the kids these great swim-suit coverups for Valentines day.

Valentine's Day

Its been a pretty low-key week.  We've all been sick and tired with colds, so we didn't have any major field trips, just park visits, swimming in the hot tub at our complex and normal daily activities.

This week we were learning more about valentine's day and hearts.  (Valentine's Day is tomorrow, so we'll still have a bit to add to finish up this unit, but we need to start a week early to start making cards)

Valentine's Day Card Making

The kids started the week at Aunt Megan's house, since I had to report for jury duty (I was able to go in and be excused since I had kids at home, but it still took a couple of hours out of my day!)

The kids loved the heart shaped hole punchers.

Mailboxes 

James found these mailboxes in the dollar section at Target and the kids loved playing with them this week.  I made hearts with each of their names on them to work on sight reading for the older kids.  They would sort the mail out of the boxes and 'deliver' the right heart to have it match the name on the wipe container (which were our pretend individual mailboxes).

Magic Heart Painting 

I saw this idea and loved it!  I wrote messages on the hearts with white crayon so that when the kids painted them they could see what  was there.  They kept wanting me to do more.

Toes

We painted our toes.  Brielle is very interested in the 'colors' of each holiday and wants everything to be red, white and pink right now.

Cutting Practice

The big kids did a perfect job cutting straight lines, but the curved lines were a big challenge for them.

More card making

stamps, stamps and more stamps

Music Boxes

Lowe's had a free kids workshop where the kids built heart-shaped music boxes.

 Heart-Shaped Games

I finally got my new laminator out so I could finally laminate these file-folder games before the kids used them.  I have a pattern matching one that was easy for Brielle, but still a challenge for Ethan and a numbers/counting one that was perfect for Brielle.

Valentine Cookies

I couldn't resist.  We had some valentine colored M&M's and they were screaming at me to be put in peanut butter cookies.  Yummy!

More Valentine Cookies 

instead of normal frosting, I made a glaze.  It was easier for the kids to paint the cookies rather than trying to spread the frosting. 

My Mom always made dinner-plate size valentine cookies for each of us.  I couldn't help but continue the tradition.

Heart Pancakes

Well, they are kind of shaped like hearts, and kind of pink.  Makes for an easy-fun Valentine's Day breakfast

Books

Brielle's favorite has been Amelia Bedelia's First Valentine.  I was so excited to see a younger version of Amelia Bedelia books, because I love those books when I was a kid.  Brielle has asked for the story every day though and it is so hard to get 'Amelia Bedilia' to roll off your tongue when you are reading it out loud over and over again.

Ethan's favorite was the board book Where is Baby Valentine.  He still loves looking under the flaps.