Search This Blog

Weeks of Y and Z

by
No comments yet

Since we're rolling up on April, with new fun stuff to do, I better get our Y and Z activities up.  We had much less focus on the letters these last two weeks (I burnt them out on X).

We covered Y with a little Y book and a song about yodeling....which the kids LOVED.  I didn't know how to sing it so I just came up with my own tune.  Then I "Youtubed" it (why didn't I think of that before?).  I'm sure there are variations.  The kids liked my own made up version just fine ;)

Here's a link.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YhfAyYJV8eQ

Rowan and Cid just can't get enough of this song.  They have a hard time picking what's going to interrupt the Austrian's yodeling.  They pick things like "a box" or "a kitchen". So I ask them what kind of sound a box or a kitchen makes.  Usually, they come up with some sort of "woosh" sound.  It gets pretty lame for me after a few verses....but ya know, you do what you gotta do.

For Z, we practiced drawing Z's and made some Zebra's out of handprints. But Rowan says his are "Wild Beasts".


(I helped Cid....obviously)

I marked a zigzag on the kitchen floor with masking tape and asked the boys to walk, hop, run along the zigzag.  We kept this up all week long....actually, its still there!


That wraps up our letters for now (we got a late start. lol).  Yesterday, during breakfast, Rowan exclaimed, "Momma, I know what letter we can do today! 'L'!  L is for Laughter!"

So we did "L".

~Sarah

My Personal Photographer (for Hire!)

by
2 Comments

I don't usually flaunt photos of myself, but when Rowan asked to take some pictures, (and they turned out like this), how could I not share?!

He donned the Nikon and we talked about finding light (as if I know what I'm talking about).

He was very professional.


"Okay Mom, sit over there, right by Domino...A little closer.  There.


"Okay, now sit over here.  Okay, let's see.  Good"


"Oh, look Mom.  This is a really cool one.  It's a little bit different. It's pretty cool."


"Ok.  Now cuddle with Lion. Good. OH! That's a really cute one."


"Now, do something a little different.  Okay. OH! thats another really cute one. It's really cute.  Look Mom!"

"Oops, Uh..."


"Okay, One last one, okay?  You go sit there.  Do something different....like... hold your purse.  Now peek inside. Okay, good! Look Mom, look at this one!"


"Now you take one of me, Mom.  Hmmhmmhmm. Mom, why are you not in the light?! Hmmmhmmhmmmm."


Pretty good for a 4 year old! (Note: none of his photos were edited)

Love this kid.

~Sarah

Froyo & Making Hummingbird Food

by
2 Comments


Today is normally Rowan's preschool day, but it's spring break.  And of course I forgot and packed everyone up to drop Rowan off at school only to realize my mistake once we pulled into the empty driveway.  This nearly led to a meltdown, except for my lightning quick proposal "Let's get ice cream!"

You can't be sad when you're eating ice cream.


At the Dollar Tree, the boys found a cute little hummingbird feeder.  I have fond memories of making "nectar" and filling feeders for the hummingbirds...I think I may have even done a science project on something like that.  Ding ding! *Lightbulb*  Who loves science right now?  Oh yeah, Rowan does!  Threw that one in the basket.

When we got home Rowan was eager to fill the feeder.  We took a few minutes to talk about hummingbirds; how they eat nectar from flowers through their long beaks, how the nectar gives theme energy, and how even though we can't make real nectar like flowers do, we can make something close by mixing sugar with water.

Then we mixed up some sugar water.  We used tap water and were very approximate with the sugar to water ratio. Hummingbird.net has this Hummingbird Feeder Recipe (1 part sugar to 4 parts water) and gives more info on creating and storing your hummingbird food.



Hope we get some hummingbirds!

~Sarah



Wait, I thought we moved to Oregon...

by
No comments yet

But you wouldn't have guessed that from these pics from the Woodburn Tulip Festival!



 It was a fun day.  Big thanks to my friend Lisa G. and her group of mom friends for setting it up!  As it turns out, those are some of the same moms that have kids in Rowan's preschool class #smalltown.

Speaking of Preschool, Rowan's first day went pretty well. The timing is going to take some getting used to for all of us.  It's only a couple of hours twice a week, and right in the middle of Cid's nap.

Also, completely unrelated, I've been avoiding the gas station.  I'm intimidated by having someone fill my tank for me!

~Sarah














Happy St. Patrick's Day (with a St. Patrick's Day kid's craft & template)

by
2 Comments


If you're like me, you were frantically searching Pinterest for some green colored food and interesting kid's crafts that need like zero materials last night.

Luckily, I found a couple things that I merged together to make this little gem.

We're making rainbows that lead to our personal pots of gold! In case you want to make one too, I added instructions, even though I know you can figure it out on your own.  And, for your convenience, I added my pot of gold drawing for you to print as a template if you want, even though I know you can draw that too ;) It's at the end of the post.


You'll need:

-Plain paper
-Yellow paper
-Pens/paints/crayons/tissue (or anything to make a rainbow)
-Glue or tape

1) Cut yellow circles out of the yellow paper - these will be the coins - I made five for each child
2) Print the template below
3) Ask your kid(s) what they treasure (or really really like) and transcribe these onto the coins
4) Have your child(ren) glue the coins onto the pot of gold
5) Then let them paint or draw (or whatever else) a rainbow!

Pretty simple!


Print your template:
 -Save this image to your computer & print!



Enjoy :)

~Sarah

Our Long Trip Goodbye - From San Jose to Portland, Through Petrolia, Part 1

by
1 Comment


The original plan was for the whole family to make a slow trip up to Oregon, passing through my Parents' house in Petrolia along the way.  But circumstances led us to a decision to take separate paths. Rogér would drive straight to Oregon up I-5, while the boys and I would take on the 101 to visit my parents in Humboldt County, and beyond.

Rogér's trip was about 9 hrs of driving.  Definitely not fun, but at least it was "One and Done!"

I have to admit, I was scared to make this trip. The thought of driving myself and my two tot boys, Rowan and Cid, over 15 hours on my own... ALONE...probably added a few gray hairs to my head. But what scared me much, much more was my unreliable car and crappy T-mobile cell phone service.  This car left me stranded about six months ago, and if it did that to me on this very rugged and wilderness-y trip...ugh, I did not want to think of the headache and hassle this would bring!

We did NOT do the trip in one day.  No way.  We drove to my dad's house, near Petaluma, the first night to visit Grandpa Lane and Barbara.  That was only a couple of hours and a nice layover for all of us.  We even got a surprise visit from my Aunt Lori!


Then the next morning we hit the road towards Petrolia, only about 4 and a half miles from our first stop.  All went really smoothly.  Even got the kids to the bathroom in time along the way *pats myself on the back*.

The kids were awesome.  As we drove into Honeydew, I told the boys, "I'm so proud of you guys.  You have been really good traveling buddies." And Rowan piped back, "Momma, me and Cid was your road dogs." Like I said, they're awesome.

We spent a great week in Petrolia, which started with the boys riding their pony, Shasta. When we pulled up my parents' driveway, the first words out of Cid's mouth were, "Grandpa, where's Shasta?!" Followed by, "I want to ride Shasta".  So we did.


Every day, the boys helped Grandma feed the horses, goats, and bunnies, and then headed off to Grandma's preschool. What's really cool, besides that my kids got to go to my mom's preschool and I got like, a few hours of time to myself, is that kids I grew up with now have kids my kids' age that go to that preschool too!

It is always such a blast to see Rowan and Cid take on the country life.  This time around Rowan really loved the goats. Especially, Patchie, the larger male one.  He just had THE best time running around with them.  Cid took a while to warm up to them.



We also got a special lunch with Grandpa Dan at The Yellow Rose, which finally made things right with Cid and Grandpa Dan. (Cid had beef with Grandpa Dan for eating some of Cid's Pirate's Booty earlier in the week).  That boy can hold a grudge!

The boys were constantly busy; tree climbing, making bows and arrows, swinging, and they even got to go to the neighbors house to watch how we get milk from cows. They brought home some super yummy, super fresh raw milk....Mmmmmm.




 

And of course, we were always super happy to talk to Daddy on the phone.


I got to see a few people I grew up with this time around, which was really great, though it turns out a week goes by really fast and there doesn't seem to ever be enough time for catching up.

~Sarah



X-treme Potty Training

by
No comments yet



Oregon is spoiling me with this gorgeous weather! Most of the week was absolutely perfect. I could have worn shorts! But it's going to rain all weekend, so I guess I better enjoy it while it lasts.

We've given up on X's for the week, except for one thing: X-treme potty training.

Cid decided all of a sudden that he did not want to wear diapers anymore.  This is a big step for him. He's totally different than his older brother, in the potty training department. Rowan was soooo easy to potty train.  It took one long weekend of just undies with like two accidents, none of which were #2 (one other accident doesn't count because he told me we had to go, but we were in the car heading home so I asked him to hold it. Needless to say he couldn't hold it that long.  He was distraught.  I know, Mom of Year right here).

Cid, not so much.

When we've tried the undies only method in the past, I've found him happily sitting in a puddle of pee, diving his Spiderman Lego car into it.  "Look, Mommy! Dey are shwimming!" splash.

So when he declared, "No diaper!" two days ago, I was none too thrilled (diapers are easy, even if they are gross and bad for the planet), but I was reluctantly willing to give him another chance.  Needless to say, we've been through countless pairs of peed through undies/pants, one monster-pooped through pair of undies/pants, and a couple more less formidable pooped in undies.  BUT, at least he's telling us when he has a poop, even if it was after the fact.  He usually denies it and screams when you try to peek. Luckily, he still lets us put a diaper on for nap and bedtime sooooo, I guess it's not so extreme....its more like just potty training, which sucks enough all by itself.

It's going to be slower going with this one, but I see and end for diapers in sight!...at least for a while :)



~Sarah

Week of "X" - Day 2

by
2 Comments

It's raining!  Yay!  LOL. I'm sure I won't be saying this after I experience a real Oregon Winter/Spring.  But for now, it's actually really nice and refreshing.  The air is cool and crisp, and it's really just a light rain so we still got to jog and play outside.

 





And to continue our "X"-capades, we made some xylophones...

                         


Rowan bargained with me tonight, "I'm only doing one more X activity, Mom, then no more. Zero."

Maybe I piled it on a bit too much yesterday.  I'm out of ideas, and materials.

~Sarah


Week of "X" - First day of preschool at home

by
5 Comments

We pulled the double B.O.B. out of our storage closet last night and I was all prepared to take the boys for a jog, until I couldn't figure out how to get the stroller out of our apartment!  We are on the ground floor, but there are still narrow staircases leading out both the front and back.  I did eventually get it out.  I'm sure I looked a fool hoisting it over the wall of our back patio. It's only like a two foot wall, but I had packed the stroller with all the things I needed for the day....the diaper bag, the treasure for our treasure hunt, lunch, my purse, our garbage bucket (which is a little blue pail), plus the spillover from the garbage bucket and the recycle bag.  Note to self: Take the garbage out at night so you don't have to take everyone and everything with you to do it.

The boys must have grown since the last time I pushed them in the B.O.B! It was a tough little jog.

X is the letter of the week this week (thanks for sending me your curriculum, Mom!), so we started things off making treasure maps,(X marks the spot), and finding the hidden treasure in the park.  The treasure was just some bubbles and an eye patch from a friend's pirate themed birthday party, (one of the kids' friends, not one of ours, though an adult pirate themed birthday party would be fun!!).

It started off in the right direction with some sand and dashes leading to an X.  Then I suggested he add some palm trees, so he added a volcano and a monster.
Rowan LOVED the little treasure hunt even though it was completely illogical since it didn't follow the map at all and I just hid the box behind a low hanging tree branch, marked with pine cones in the shape of an "X" while I parked the stroller facing the opposite direction so they couldn't see where I hid it.

Cid had no interest.  He just wanted to swing.

We also decorated popsicle stick  X's and made X-rays. We're working with limited supplies here, but we were able to make due.




Day One (and a half)

by
2 Comments

Just finished our first full day in Oregon!  It's been beautiful. So far, we've already spent lots of great time with our few friends that live very close to us now.  And we're trying to learn the local lingo so we don't sound so *gasp* Californian .  Tigard is "Ty-gard" not "Tigg-ard", and Hazelnuts are Filberts. And I've been trying really hard not to say I took "the 101 to the 199 to the 5".  Haha, but it just slips out.

Today we found out that rodents of unusual size actually do exist and are running rampant through these parts!


But here they call them nutria....

Can't wait to see one!

Also, the Costco milk comes in a ridiculously weird and dysfunctional shape.



Today was daylight savings and we lost an hour of our precious, and gorgeous weekend.  Bummer.

But we did try to make the most of it, with walk/scooter ride to a great park just around the corner.  Besides being really close, there's a paved walking path that pretty much leads directly there. Bonus!

Scootin' to the park




After lunch at "Hot Donald's" (as Cid says), we drove around to check out house situation.  It's pretty dismal right now.  There are tons of great places that would be perfect for us...just not for sale.  Or at least not for sale in our price range. Hopefully we find something eventually, or sooner than that.





Related Posts Plugin for WordPress, Blogger...