This Week (Mostly Just School Pictures)

This week, so far, has been very chill.  For some reason, we have just been totally happy hanging out at home.  We have done the usual park (it’s finally getting nice enough to go!  Well in the early mornings at least…), library (a couple of times already!), errands, and so on.  But we have also been enjoying playing at home! 

I’ve finally got my school schedule down.  Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday we will be doing the Letter of the Week curriculum.  On Thursday and Friday we will be doing themed learning from 2 Teaching Mommies.  It’s working out really well so far.  That Makenna is LOVING school!  Honestly, as soon as breakfast is over and Caillou is watched, she starts BEGGING to “play school.”  Unfortunately, Max isn’t enjoying it so much.  He always thinks school time should be “Mommy hold Max and only pay attention to him instead of Makenna” time.  I still haven’t worked out how to take care of that problem…  He doesn’t want to play with other toys or do school with Makenna or anything like that… And he doesn’t really take two naps anymore… Any ideas?

These are pictures of activities we did with Letter of the Week.  We are doing each letter for two weeks, so this week we finished up with the letter A.  I’m proud to say that Makenna now consistently recognizes both capital and lowercase “A” and can tell you its sound.  I was just hoping she would be able to recognize her letters by the time she turns 3—but that smartie is exceeding my expectations!  She keeps surprising us by telling us random letters and their sounds! She is also really picking up on numbers, shapes, and colors—the usual preschool stuff!

*Disclaimer.  Makenna dresses herself every morning without help from her parents.  So prepare yourself for LOTS of pink!  She is also a big clothes-repeater; she finds tops she loves and wants to wear them every time they are back clean in her drawer! So if it seems like my daughter always wears the same clothes—not my fault! Also prepare yourself for MANY pictures—only moms and grandmas may be able to handle the overload! ; )

Finger-painting lowercase “A”:

    

I let Max have a turn with finger-painting—he wasn’t impressed.  It dirtied his hands up and didn’t taste good! : )

 

Painting capital “A” with a paintbrush:

Max wasn’t too excited about using the paintbrush either (maybe he doesn’t like art?):

Dot art:

Counting apple seeds and matching them to their correct number:

(I love that little counting finger!)

Working on patterns:

I’ve learned something about Miss Makenna this week:  she is so not a math person!  She loves art, puzzles, music, letters, etc. but she just doesn’t really like counting, patterns, graphs, and so on!  I wonder if that will stay the case throughout her life?

Color-match puzzles:

Working on cutting and pasting:

Outlining her “As” with a toothpick (she LOVED doing this!)

Lacing an apple:

Shape-match puzzles:

She was so excited that she could spell “apple” all by herself!

 

Prewriting practice (she and Max had just came inside after playing in the backyard, hence the sweaty face and hair!):

Her favorite project this week—making her alligator!

 

This is how Max feels about school (crying and trying to climb up Mom are his new favorite games):

Tomorrow I will share our study of the ocean! Aren’t you excited?!? ; )

Kid’s Expo

On Saturday we went to the Kid’s Expo.  Basically, there were just a lot of booths set up that were introducing products or companies.  BUT each booth also had give-a-ways, crafts, characters to meet, games, etc. for kids.  We stayed a couple of hours (basically until Max was just TOO hungry and tired to stay) and could have stayed much longer!  We seriously had a blast and brought home SO much stuff!  That Makenna won a backpack, bracelets, little toys, candy—so much stuff!  We also brought home t-shirts, reusable bags, like five bags of chips, and more!

Meeting new friends:

Doing some crafts: (We eventually let Max out of the stroller—as you can tell, he REALLY wanted to do the crafts too!)

Panning for gold:

Playing with the train table:

Playing in the sports area:

Trying out “eggs on a stick” (my kids LOVED these dumb hard boiled eggs because they were stuck on a stick!):

  

Going down the BIG slide (I think she was scared WHILE going down, but AFTERWARDS she loved it!):

Sitting on the throne (exactly where Princess Makenna and Emperor Max belong, right?):

(Can you tell Max was enjoying eating his free samples?)

Oh man do we love those goofy kids! : )

The A says "Ah"

How cute is our little singer?

Trip to the Splash Pad

Last week’s play group went to the Splash Pad.  We hadn’t really been this summer, so it was fun for the kids to get to go.  Makenna had a blast—too bad she gets so cold so easily!  Max just wondered around; he wasn’t too interested in the water!

Makenna shooting the water sprayer:

  

Max just walking around:

Poor Makenna!  Even though it was over 100 degrees that day and the water wasn’t cold at all, she just shook all over!  When her face started turning blue I said, “No more!  Take a break!”

The cute babies just hanging out:

That was probably our last trip to the splash pad for the year—splash pads are only good when it is HOT HOT HOT out!  So we were glad to get there while we could!

What We Have Been Up To

Since the new quarter started, it seems like we have been so busy!  Lots of play dates, play groups, trips to the library, and doing school activities!  It keeps the kids happy to stay busy, but it wears Mom out! 

Makenna is doing so great with her “school” lately.  All of a sudden, learning has just seemed to click with her.  She loves doing prewriting activities, puzzles, and playing games on the computer!  We have also started working on cutting and she can’t get enough of those scissors! : )

(She wouldn’t let me do her hair yet that morning)

(I actually won three puzzles and two books from a blog contest!  The puzzles are a bit more challenging but Makenna loves them and wants to do them over and over every day!  Too bad Mr. Max is such a mean guy to puzzles!) 

It has been fun to stay so busy, but I think it is time to cut back a little!  Mom needs a break! : )

Trip to Idaho

Man, am I behind on blogging!  Hopefully I will get caught up today! : )

Let’s see.  So the last week in August, Austin had a break for school AND his brother was getting married—perfect time for a trip to Idaho!

We flew to Salt Lake on Tuesday and spent the night there.  We drove past the temple.  Makenna was very excited to see the temple and called it a “sand castle.”  She also kept talking about “Cody getting married in the temple!”  I love that my sweet little girl loves the temple so much!

We drove to Burley bright and early on Wednesday morning.   Makenna and Max had a blast helping Grandma in the garden!  (We forgot our camera, so the only pictures we have were taken on my phone!)

On Thursday we spent the ENTIRE day outdoors!  It was BEAUTIFUL weather in Idaho! : )  We headed to the park to play, then had a picnic lunch, then went swimming—lots of outdoor playing!  The kids (including the BIG kid, Austin) had a blast—so nice to be outside after being stuck indoors during the hot Arizona summer!

         

That evening we drove to Rexburg and met up with Cody and his bride-to-be for dinner at Winger’s.  Yum!  I’ve missed that place!  It was crazy to see how different Rexburg is in just the short time we have been away!  After dinner, they took us to the fire station (both were firefighters/paramedics in Rexburg before they moved to Oklahoma) and let the kids play on the fire trucks.  They loved it!

  

On Friday we drove to Idaho Falls for the wedding.  It was beautiful!  I haven't been to a wedding since we got married almost 3 1/2 years ago.  It was so nice to hear the ceremony.  I had tears in my eyes as I looked over and saw my handsome husband and remembered the covenants we had made.  I love the temple!

Afterwards we had a luncheon, then wondered around the mall, and then finally had the reception.  Neither one of my kids had a nap the entire day and Max was a MONSTER!  Thanks to everyone who looked after Makenna while I was trying to take care of that crazy guy!  Finally, we drove back to Burley for the night.  It was LATE when we got back and we all fell into our bed exhausted!

On Saturday we headed to the hotel for the Open House.  Once again Max wasn’t very happy, but luckily we were able to walk around outside for a while. 

Then it was flying back to Phoenix.  We got home at like 10 pm and Austin had to be at work at 11pm!  Whew!

It was a very exhausting trip but so much fun!