Advent Day 2

The Polar Express is a favorite, so I wanted to open it so we could have it out for the rest of the month. We simply had a train-themed day, playing with trains,

we used ranch dressing to draw train track under the carrots. We also had hotdogs for lunch that became trains with ketchup as steam. The kids did spend time playing with their food, but ended up eating it, eventually.

I pulled out all of our train activities that we've done before. It has been a while, so the kids were excited about doing them again. It was a fun way to review.

Adventures in Utah

My sister Ashlie and her family came out for a visit.  Ashlie and I then made the road trip to Utah together with all our kids.  We started our trip to Utah by wearing out the kids at Disneyland for the day.  We didn't mean for it to be that way exactly, but we were trying to get to Utah before the a snow storm, so left a day earlier than we had planned.  We spent the day at Disneyland, and then left straight from there and drove to Mesquite for the night and got to South Jordan safely before the snow hit.  

 Ethan was just barely tall enough for the 40 inch rides this time.  Here is is on Thunder Mountain Railroad.  To say that he Loved it is an understatement.  He also enjoyed Splash Mountain.  He thought it was funny that he got wet.  Brielle was doing 'they potty dance,' so after going on Splash Mountain once I told her we needed to run to get to the bathroom.  She told me. "I'm just want to skip going potty and go on the ride again!"  Thanks to my brother-in-law who works for Disney.  We had a great time.

The Aquarium is growing and the kids loved it.  We ended up going twice while we were there.  I was surprised by how active the penguins were.  Brielle was the most excited about touching the sting rays, and also loved the glow-in-the-dark scorpions.  Ethan talked about the crabs and the sharks.  I'm excited they are getting a new exhibit in January with Otters.  We'll have to make a trip back to Utah.   

We decorated gingerbread houses.  Or, ate a lot of candy while getting some on the house.  Either way, it was fun.

The snow was a BIG hit!  We were glad that we made it to Utah before the storm so we could be safely inside the house.  We went out Friday night and the kids were standing on the benches at the restaurant trying to see out the window to watch it snow.  And when we left the restaurant they went running outside and were surprised by how slippery it was.  Saturday morning they made good use of Grandma's sleds and the hill.

We were able to see my brother, Jared, play Gaston in his High School Musical.  We weren't allowed to take pictures, so this is after he had changed.  It was a very impressive show.

The swimming pool had a small waterslide that kept the kids occupied for a good hour before they even thought to venture to any other part of the pool.  They could have stayed much longer if we didn't have family and more fun waiting back at Grandma's house.

Fishing at the Church History Museum.  The exhibit has so many fun hands-on activities for the kids.  We had to drag them out at closing time.  We also on a different day went to the Gale Center in South Jordan, another free museum with fun hands-on play for the kids.  They Gale Center had a gingerbread contest with all the houses on display.  My sister's house won 2nd place, and it was amazing to see.

We went to temple square to enjoy the 700,000 lights that decorate the trees.

We had such a great time with all of our Utah family.  We will cherish the memories made.

Christmas Book Advent

I've seen lots of other people do the same idea, so it is nothing new, but a fun tradition to start.  I wanted to do the book advent last year, but we were moving and traveling during Christmas.
Anyway, today we started our Christmas Book Advent.  Each day the kids have a book to open, and then we will do an activity to go along with the book.  They are not new books; some are ones we already have, others will be library books.  We are doing it in the morning after our calendar time.  So we know what day it is and which number to open.

We started today with Henry Bear's Christmas by David Mcphail.  The book starts with it being the 1st day of December, which made it a good fit for today.

In the book Henry Bear makes a chain to decorate his tree.

The kids were very excited about making a pattern with green and red.

And they chose to decorate the dining room rather than the tree.

I got the numbers for the presents from here.  They are supposed to be red and green, but apparently my ink is running low.

Monsters

The week before Halloween we had a pumpkin theme, so with Halloween being on a Monday, we spent the week of Halloween learning about monsters. A lot of activities were some that we've done in the past, but they were exciting again. Here are a few things we got pictures of that week.

Monster Projects

Pipe cleaners and googly eyes added to playdoh make for some very creative monsters. Some kids wanted one-eyed monsters, others wanted eyes all over....such fun. We also made paper-bag monsters as we have done before and drew pictures of monsters.

Monster Games

We have a variety of 'monster' toys like the one Ethan is holding. The are some kind of stretchy stress toy that the kids love to play with. Brielle liked playing a game where I would call a letter as I tossed it to her and she would think of a word to start with that letter.

Monster Food

We turned our lunch and snacks into various monsters. In this one I used celery for horns, hard boiled eggs for the eyes, a grilled cheese cut with a cookie cutter for the face and a slice of pepperoni for a tongue. I have a food safe marker to decorate. I discovered that my kids love hard-boiled eggs. We hadn't had them for a while, so they were new again. I made extras to have for breakfast, but we ended up going through them.

Monster Books

The all time favorite was Scary Fright Are You All Right? I don't know what it was about this book but the kids loved it. I don't remember even putting it on hold. Ethan came home with it after a trip to the library with Dad. It is a short chapter book that we re-read over and over.

The Halloween Goblin

And, not exactly for the monster week, but leading up to Halloween... We used this idea from oopsey daisy. The 13 nights of Halloween. Each day during the kids nap 'The Goblin' came to our house. There was a note left in our little mailbox that gave a clue as to where a picture was hiding. Brielle wanted to hang them up in her room and I often found her counting them to make sure we had them all up.

preschool packs

http://mamasmonkeys.blogspot.com/2011/10/not-so-scary-monsters-tot-pack.html

http://overthebigmoon.blogspot.com/2011/10/autumn-gnome-pre-k-pack.html

Our Thankful Tree

We started our tree on November 1st (well, actually I think I was a day behind in getting it up, so it was probably the 2nd, but don't tell anyone.)  I've seen lots of really decorative and beautiful trees.  We used butcher paper and created a huge tree on our kitchen wall.  It isn't fancy, but at least the kids could tell it was a tree.

Each morning at breakfast we wrote down something we were thankful for on a leaf and added it to the tree.

I'm kind of sad that November is over and it is time to take it down.  It has been a good reminder this month of all the things we are thankful for, and will be fun to do again next year.

This is Halloween, This is Halloween...

Halloween FINALLY came!  For me Halloween season started back in the middle of September when Disneyland put out the pumpkins and changed the Haunted Mansion over to the Nightmare Before Christmas.  Since then we've been singing a lot of 'This is Halloween' at our house.

Halloween continued as we went to our first pumpkin patch up in Morro Bay, and then our second at Cal Poly Pomona.  It is tough work trying to choose the perfect pumpkin.

But we finally narrowed down our selection.

The fun continued as we painted our pumpkins

And then, after a month and a half of anticipation we made it to the Halloween Weekend!

Saturday we made pumpkin pancakes with cinnamon syrup

Which make for great spider webs

or jack-o-lanterns

Saturday night we went to our ward's Trunk or Treat.  Ethan enjoyed the bobbing for apples so much he had me re-create it at home.  

On Sunday night continued family traditions as we made Dinner in a pumpkin and donuts, and carved the pumpkins.  Brielle and Gavin both wanted skeletons, which they had a lot of help from Aunt Megan and Papa Finlay to make.  Ethan wanted a scary Monster, and Lissy chose the semi-colon face, which she says is a princess.

And Monday the kids got to experience trick-or-treating.  They even performed by singing 'Doe, a Deer' to earn themselves some extra candy.  

Prizes

Lissy has been staying with us for about 1 1/2 weeks.  Her smart mom left her with a bag of prizes to choose one each day (and was nice enough to include Brielle and Ethan).  Each morning after kids were dressed and ready for the day, Coco would get to go to the prize box and choose one for the day. A great way to start the day.

The first day was the putty.  The kids loved it enough that it has been played with almost every day since.  It is not as messy as playdoh (although you still need to watch to make sure it is not being overly stretched, or stuck into hair.) and it makes the 'farting' noises that the kids find hilarious.  Simple life pleasures.

These bubbles were magical.  They had superpowers that allowed them to not pop.  Honestly, we went inside and when we went back out to play after naps (maybe 6 hours later?) I spotted a couple on the ground.

The bath capsules are always fun.  This time however we watched them grow in cups rather than in the bathtub (due to Ethan's broken arm making bath time a bit of a challenge). That was a fun change.

slinkies, which have become bracelets, or swords...whatever.

I remember these from childhood.  So many great memories.  The 2-year-olds needed a lot of help, but were very excited about the final project.  Brielle really enjoyed it.

I've always loved the magical black paper.  I remember making our own in school sometime, when you had to color with black crayon forever.  Ethan is pondering what to draw next.

And, in case you need other ideas for great prizes, we also had:

light up rings

glow in the dark bracelets

temporary tattoos

snap hands

bendable wax sticks

Such a great idea and so much fun for everyone.  Lissy also had a count-down chain that she made with her Mom before coming.  She was able to take off one loop each night to keep track of how many days she had left.  Fun things to keep her happy while staying for (in her words) 'a LONG minute'.