They Could Do This All Day Long

We have been trying to make a weekly tradition of going to a local park and having a picnic. It is really fun because we get to have 4 generations together at least once a week. This week we went to Encanto Park and had a great spaghetti dinner with salad, breadsticks and pie to top it off. After dinner we let the kids run off some energy by playing on the toys. The park has two play sets, one for little kids and one for the older kids. Ethan and Elise were getting very good at crawling up the stairs to the little one, so we moved them to the bigger slides. They wanted nothing more than to do this all night long. Needless to say, they are getting some good sleep tonight.



Note: I uploaded the HD version of this video and you will notice in the lower right of the video you can mouse over and choose the 720p version once the video starts playing if your machine and connection can handle it.

So Long Chevy Astro!

This weekend we went back up to Morro Bay with James' parents and sister (with her family) to see about selling the Astro Van. It had broken down a few weeks ago (fuel pump) and after being told the fix would be about equal to the van's worth, we decided to sell it. My dad thought he might be able to do a quick/cheap fix, but that did not work out. We needed to sell it quickly as we were leaving the following day so we posted it on Craigslist for a fair price, but considering it was not running we were willing to settle if needed. Within 3 minutes of posting my phone started ringing and did not stop. Long story short, we ended up selling it for double what we asked and it was gone in a few hours. We are now carless, but that should change in a few days. Here is the last picture we have with the van.

Ethan and his cousin Elise loved crawling all over the backyard. We had to keep a little bit of a close eye on them as they loved to pic things (bugs, rocks, sticks, etc.) and pop them in their mouths.

After the van sold we went on a walk down to the beach. We found some great creatures including the giant (although dead) starfish as well as some baby crabs at which Ellie and Gavin were taking a closer look. Morro Bay is just such a great place to explore!

Preschool A-Z

We made it!

I've been working on a capital letter each week with Brielle and Gavin. We've tried learning the sounds, but it has been more just focused on letter recognition which they are both great at now. Next we are moving on to lower case.

One of the things I do each week is have them decorate the letter. These are all compiled in their alphabet book.

We missed doing the letter for some of the weeks, so we'll have to go back to those ones. Here is what we do have though (as pictured above):

A-apple (painting w/ apples)

B-bike (bike stickers)

C-candy

D-missing

E-missing

F-food (collage from newspaper)

G-green grass (glued on shredded green paper)

H-hands

I-insect (not finished, I was looking for insect stickers)

J-jellybean

K-kiss (I put lipstick on the kids to 'kiss' their K. It was really cute)

L-leaves

M-money

N-newspaper

O-owl (we used oranges to paint the 'o' and then decorated it)

P-paint (we painted using potatoes)

Q-missing

R-rainbow

S-striped snake

T-train track

U-umbrella (we colored the U, and then took it outside and squirted 'rain' on it to see what happened)

V-vegetables

W-missing

X-x-ray fish (used letter x stamps and fish stamps)

Y-yarn

Z-zoo (zoo animal stickers)

I know I had someone ask me how my craft supplies are organized. Here we have it!

We're not extremely structured. They're not even 3 yet, after all. Some weeks we have more time than others. I get books from the library with titles that start with the letter, we do craft activities, large/small motor activities, cooking, field trips, etc.

For my benefit, here are other things I remember from what we did each week.

(I know, I should have been posting as we did them so I didn't forget!)

A-made wooden airplanes, talked about the alphabet, made ants with egg cartons

B-ate chocolate/peanut butter covered bananas, learned the wheels on the bus, blew bubbles, kicked balls, talked about Brielle

C-we did during Christmas time

D-made donuts, went to Disneyland!

E-Ears (Gavin's mom made cute bunny-ear/head bands with them)

F-finger painting, fire station tour

G-talked about Gavin, made a guitar (also done by Gavin's mom), played games, planted seeds for the garden

H-did during Halloween time, made ghosts with marshmallows

I-went on an insect hunt, went out for Ice-cream, talked about imagination

J-tried to learn how to jump rope

K-made a kangaroo puppet

L-talked about lions, went to the library, went on our leaf hunt for our letter L

M-money-showed them coins (penny, nickle, dime and quarter) and had them match them, monkey masks, marble painting, paper bag monsters (just newspaper stuffed in lunch bags) were a HUGE hit. We decorate with markers and googly eyes. It turned into a pillow fight that lasted all week long.

N-necklaces (made multigrain cheerio snack necklaces), aslo the kids love playing with necklaces all the time, numbers-counting to 10 is good, but number recognition is still something we need to work on.

O-Talked about octopuses. Watched a BBC you tube clip which the kids really enjoyed. I thought it was intresting too! Learned song from Notimeforflashcards called Oscar the Octopus.

P-picnic w/ peanut butter and peach jam sandwiches. Blew bubbles so they could 'POP' them, popped popcorn-to eat and and t0 make popcorn tree craft, sang popcorn popping

Q-talked about queens, quilts, and question marks

R-ribbon Painting-used skinny and thick ribbons (instead of paintbrushes) to paint with, rope-walking on to balance, jump over, and use play follow-the-leader, read book about rhinoceros/watched you-tube to learn more. rice sensory tub

S-played I Spy, played in sand box, practiced cutting with scissors

T-did during Thanksgiving (which didn't make as much sense as I originally thought as we weren't focusing on the 'th' sound but the 't' sound) made paper bag turkeys, built tunnels, played with trains

U-played with umbrellas

V-did for Valentine's week. made Valentine's Cards-used heart shaped sponges to paint/stamp paper. Also traced hands to make 'I Love You' (sign language) valentine cards. Frosted Valentine-heart-shaped cookies

W-water sensory tub, walrus

X-talked about x in other words to use "ex" sound instead of "z" sound. fox, box, exit

Y-yogurt painting,

Z-zebras, zoo, zippers

Easter Time Fun

To me Easter isn't complete without making a bird's nest with chowmein noodles/butterscotch chips and jelly beans. The kids seem to enjoy the tradition too.

I saw an idea for using evaporated milk to paint food. We decided to turn our pancakes into Easter Eggs and decorate them.

Dyeing Easter eggs at the park. Was great for an easy clean up after spilling.

A visit to the Easter Bunny. Both kids were a bit weary of getting close...

until we told Brielle the Easter Bunny was in charge of hiding the eggs and to say Thank You!

We had a great time at the family Easter party out at Aunt Eileen's Ranch. Who wouldn't love finding candy all over the place...

and playing fun games!

The kids were introduced to the idea of pinatas. It turned out to be a bit hit! (no pun intended) :)

Ethan 12 Month Stats

My name is: Ethan (aka Fums, Little Buddy)
I'm: 1 year old
Things I love:
-Airplanes
-Baths
-Music and Dancing
-Eating cell phones
-Food (especially blueberries and grapes)
-Daddy's Name Badge
-Eating Paper
-Playing in the Toilet
-Climbing
Favorite book: Anything with a penguin.  I like to 'waddle, waddle, waddle'
Pet Peeve: When I find a cell phone, camera, or ipod and it gets taken away.
Catch Phrase: 'waddle, waddle, waddle'
Height: 32 3/4 inches
Weight: 25.5 pounds
Head: 48 3/4 centimeters
Words: Nothing official. I can sign all done, more, airplane and penguin (hence all the waddling).
Teeth: 1
Movement: Crawling Fast, Standing, Cruising, Taking 1-3 steps

Fums First Birthday

For breakfast Ethan ("Fums") was treated to chocolate chip pancakes. As you can see from his face (both the expression and the residue) the jury is still out on whether or not he really liked it.

For lunch Meg, the kids and Grandma Finlay came down to visit Dad at work. Their favorite place to come play is the Japanese garden at the City of Hope. Meg was fighting to hold Ethan back the whole time while he fed the fish. He was giggling the whole time while he pet the koi and let them gnaw on his fingers and toes.

Here is the after shot of the cake. Meg had already cleaned him up pretty well, but as you can see he was a very motivated eater, wanting nothing more than to give each part of the cake a chance to express its flavor.

Ethan received many wonderful presents. Dad inspected each one to make sure that if it made noise that there was an "off" switch or that the batteries could be removed without a screwdriver. All gifts passed. Thanks everyone!

The New Place

We must apologize for not getting these pictures up sooner, but we have just been trying to get things somewhat organized at our new place. We have been in this townhouse for about 2 weeks now and are starting to feel much more at home. We are loving having a place to ourselves, but we do miss the big family dinners every night a little bit.

Couches? We don't need no stinkin' couches? Actually we would eventually like to get a nice sofa and love seat, but for the time being we have some dining chairs that were donated to us by some friends here in California. Kibaki has taken her rightful place in the front room to be the guard.

Here is the actual dining room. The tile makes for easy clean up, but is a little hard on the glasses when they accidently get dropped!

The third bedroom is the kid's playroom. We picked this one because if the kids need to get outside for some fresh air (like a really bad diaper?) then there is a balcony right there.

Here is our bedroom. It is always this clean, we promise.



The kids room. Or, where Brielle sleeps and Ethan is supposed to sleep once he gets use to a crib (he's slept in a pack n' play his whole life and seems to prefer it).



Our office area.



The kids bathroom.

We don't have much of a yard, but we do have a little patio area. We also have a small grassy area to play just outside our front door. We live right next to the library, and a new park is being built across the street.