Forests

My camera and wallet were stolen when we were at the beach on Wednesday.   Luckily I upload my pictures quite frequently, so I had a couple from Monday. Until we get a new camera, I guess this blog is going to be a little bit boring.  

Anyway, a few things we did while learning about forests this week.

We did some activities in the preschool pack created by 2 Teaching Mommies

I was planning to have the kids color in their graphing chart, but when Brielle saw it she got excited and asked if we were doing a 'snack project'. (we've done those before, and apparently she is a fan)

The kids enjoyed this puzzle of matching the animals footprints to the correct animal.  I then traced the kids hands and feet so they could compare their prints with the animals.

Books

Favorites

Brielle: Rain Forestsby Nancy Smiler Levinson

Ethan: Over in the Jungle Marianne Berkes

We talked about both 'mountain forests' and rain forests

We've done a rainstick before, but here is another example of how to do one.

Something I found interesting...

We have been blogging for over 6 years.  That is a long time!
Our First Post was back in July of 2005 on the Kibaki's Korner blog that James started for his extended family.  We then started a Christensen family blog for my family before we finally branched out to our own family blog in January of 2008 and have blogged an average of at least once a week since then.  I guess our family is pretty well documented.

That is all.

Japan

I want the kids to learn a little bit about the world and geography. I have always been fascinated by Asian cultures and architecture. When I was young (about 8) I picked up a chinese magazine (The Friend, from the distribution center), and decided I would learn Chinese. Turns out that isn't an easy thing to do. :) I was still interested in languages when I got to college and since Chinese didn't work in my schedule, decided on a whim to take Japanese. I only took a semester and don't remember much, except the first word that our professor taught us 'ano' which was the equivalent of um, so we could stall.  I had an outside influence that caused me to take portuguese instead.

We were given these Japanese strawberry danishes.  They looked quite beautiful, but only Ethan actually liked to eat them.  I showed the kids the packaging and what the written language looked like.

We learned about the flag of Japan

We also learned about volcanoes.  Did you know that Japan has about 200 volcanoes, 60 of which are active?  That night we got to go the Hollywood Bowl to see the orchestra perform pieces from Fantasia.  The kids were excited to clip from the Creation scene showing all the volcanoes erupting.

We love going to the Japanese Gardens to feed the Koi.  We did some fish stamping to make thank you notes for our swim teachers.

James got the kids a small piece of dry ice.  They thought it was another volcano and had so much fun learning and playing with Dad.

I'm looking at our books and realizing I didn't take any pictures of our origami.  We did some simple things, like gliders and boats.

Books

Brielle is pointing to her favorite book of the week, Maneki Neko.  The kids also liked The Magic Fan

Front Room Makeover

While I was out in Utah, James 'surprised' me by fixing up our front room.  (Those that know James, know that he doesn't actually keep a surprise very often.)  So, while I did know that he was working on the room while I was gone, I was surprised by how amazing it looked!  Meg and Dan contributed a rug that looks like it was made to fit in this room.

I don't have an actual before picture, but here is an idea of what it looked like...

James got the mirror above the piano from work.  It was a castaway and was FREE! It was a natural tone wood originally.  He spray painted the mirror, the two end tables and the coffee table.  He had help from his Dad and Sister to hang the mirror above the piano.

The Whirling Dervish

Luckily our first kid is slightly more well-behaved than the average child (usually), because our second is AT LEAST two hand fulls, usually more.  I know that he can get into trouble quickly, so I try to not leave him unattended. EVER.  Part of his amazingness though is that he is able to do everything while I am standing right there, in the same room!  I turn my back to him for a second and poof, out comes trouble!

So, for the record, some things that I remember just in the past month:

• Locked himself in closet-that had no key (my dad had to jimmyrig the door to get it off and let him out.) He was stuck in there for at least 15 minutes, but was as happy as could be.

• Swallowed a nickel, and also some necklace beads.  Everything came out okay

• Bit Ellie, multiple times-she will have scars to prove it to him when she needs a favor in years to come

• Pulled a chunk of Ellie's hair out of her head.  I saved it, also so Brielle can blackmail him later in life.

• Colored with marker on his Aunt's beds...and ate all their gum (sorry guys!)

• Spilled water on the floor of the airport, and then got down on the floor to lap it up like a dog.  I'm glad my son can be airport entertainment.  Your welcome to all those strangers.

• Created multiple kitchen disasters:  eggs cracked all over the floor, multiple packages of canned biscuits taken from the fridge and opened, syrup poured out, popcorn kernels dumped, water ladled from the sink to the floor...

That is all I can think of for now.  He is so cute and loving that it is hard to stay upset with him for too long.

Caterpillars and Butterflies

Do you know the difference between a chrysalis and a cocoon? To put it simply a butterfly has a chrysalis, some moths and other insects use a cocoon.  It kind of bothers me that some of the kids books don't use the terms correctly.  How are we suppose to learn if a picture book teaches us the wrong information? Good thing we don't rely on picture books our whole life.  We get to use wikipedia instead. :)

There are SO many activities and ideas to do with the Butterfly theme.  I have a huge list of things that we didn't have time for.  (Especially with sick kids this week.)  But, we did fit in quite a few things, so here are a few fun things we've been up to.

Aunt Megan got us a Butterfly Garden and Caterpillars.  It has been the coolest thing to watch the caterpillars literally growing in front of our eyes.  The caterpillars are currently in the chrysalis stage, so we are excited to see the butterflies emerge next week.

Paper Ring Caterpillars

Symmetry

We squirted paint on a piece of paper and folded it in half so it was the same on both sides.

After letting the paint dry I cut them into butterflies

The kids obviously wanted to do more than one.  We have a very decorated butterfly kitchen now.

Snacks

Pretty much every lunch and snack can be made into a caterpillar or butterfly.  Really, try it.  Sandwiches and quesadillas (as shown) cut into triangles, grapes lined up like a caterpillars.  Using different pasta shapes to show the life cycle. I'm just saying we ate lots of caterpillars and butterflies this week.

Patterns

Stay and Play Mama created these pattern strips to go with the book The Very Hungry Caterpillar.  Brielle is OBSESSED with patterns.  She looks for and finds patterns everywhere and in everything, so she was more than happy to help Ethan with this activity.

Play Dough Life Cycle

Apparently Ethan really liked making this peanut butter play dough, because the next day when I asked the kids what they wanted for lunch he said "Play Dough!"

Brielle however was sick enough she didn't even eat a single M&M.  Poor kid.  She still enjoyed molding the egg, caterpillar, chrysalis and butterfly though, and especially like the decorating.

Butterfly Puzzles

Puzzles are still one of the only things I can get Ethan to sit still for.  I have to use them in moderation so that they will work when I really need him to calm down, but he loves doing them.

Books

Brielle's favorite was Clara Caterpillar by Pamela Duncan Edwards.  I think the author listed all the words that start with a letter 'C' and then found a way to weave them in to a story.

Fly, Monarch! Fly! by Nancy Elizabeth Wallace was a good informational book as is My, Oh My-a Butterfly! by Tish Rabe

Pirates

Last week was all about PIRATES!  The kids have a pretend pirate ship in our backyard that they play in all the time, so I knew they would be excited about it.

Snacks

Brielle and Lissy especially loved creating these pirates.  Ethan just wanted to eat the chocolate chip eye patch, but who can blame him? :)

Learning Activities

Homeschool Creations created a Pirate Lapbook with lots of fun activities.  We practiced numbers and counting (and taking turns) as we played this pirate game.

Pirate Dress Up

We made eye patches (or 'Irishes as Gavin called them).  

spy glasses and swords

And set up an treasure hunt following the book Pirate Treasure Hunt by Jan Peck.  We had a forest, a cliff, a plank to walk, water to splash through...The kids LOVED it and did it again and again.

Books

Brielle's favorite was The Gingerbread Pirates by Kristin Kladstrup.  It is Christmasy, but cute.

The Dangerous Alphabet was creepy and just weird.

The Night Pirates by Peter Harris I thought was a fun story

Ethan liked all of them.  He is really big into boats, so every page was filled with him screaming "BOAT, BOAT!!"  Makes it a bit hard to get through the stories, but still fun.

We are Family

A few highlights from our trip to Utah:

• all 11 siblings together
• the Church History Museum
• fun family reunion games, activities and yummy food
• all 33 of my Grandmother Christensen's great-grandchildren in one house
• splashing in puddles
• Grandmother's treasure hunt
• late night games with silly sisters and patient brother-in-laws
• swimming, biking and running with sisters and cousin
• finishing a triathlon!
• visiting with friends
• Time with Family

Turning 30

I've had a good life so far.  I try to take advantages of any opportunities that come my way and live life to the fullest.

In the last 10 years I

• graduated from college
• obtained my first full-time job
• got married
• became a mom (twice)
• moved 9 times
• traveled to 25 states and 3 countries 
• ran my first 5k, two ragnar relays and my first marathon
• did my first triathlon

The first 30 years of my life have been pretty eventful, so I'm still trying to figure out what my goals are for the next 10 years of my life (and beyond).  All I know is that with my track record, it is going to be fun and exciting and I will love (*almost) every minute of it!

*except for when my kids are both sick and screaming...I'm still looking for ways to love those moments.

An Explanation

If anyone is looking for an excellent way to get behind (on blogging, dishes, laundry....everything) here is a good recipe to follow:
*go on vacation
*get your kids sick

We are running on survival mode around here.  The kids both want to be held day and night, which makes it hard to get much else done.  On the plus side though, Ethan was so cuddly at church on Sunday that he sat still and quiet on my lap for ALL 3 hours (this is how I knew he was sick).  He NEVER holds still.  EVER!

And the other plus side.  We are getting a lot of books read.

It is Thursday.  We hadn't been to the store at all this week.  We've been scrambling to find James some decent food to take in his lunches (poor James).  How can we have food storage and NOTHING to take for lunch!?
After 3 attempts this morning (all which ended with crying kids and cuddles) we finally got out the door and to the store (with no one screaming!).  This was only after I told Ellie that the reason we were trying to get to the store is because we were all out of medicine and I couldn't help her feel better without some help from some medicine.

And of course while I was there I stocked up on milk, eggs and produce so that James can have a really great lunch tomorrow.  Finally.