Jeremy and Maile

A Nana Visit

2012-02-02T10:58:00.001-08:00

I was completely blown away and blessed by my special little visitor this week. Nana got to come spend a whole day with us and it was literally the most perfect day! I think I can speak for every foster parent in the world when I say that nothing makes me happier than knowing I can stay in contact with this little princess and that I can see with my own eyes that she is happy and thriving. I am beyond thankful to the Lord, to her new momma and to all my friends and family that have prayed for this child's protection.
The moment she walked in the door she began pulling out all her old favorites. We had to read "Chicka Chicka Boom Boom" and "B is for Bear". We spent the morning revisiting all her old favorites and watching her explore the house to see if anything was different.

Baby Lee wasn't here when she arrived because he was at his visit with his family so she tried out all his baby toys :) She also ran into James' room and stole his doggy off his bed and carried it around like a trophy. This was a big "no no" when she lived with us so it was hilarious to see her go and grab it. Once a little sister, always a little sister!

We went to the park to enjoy some time with her friends who have been missing her as well. The Davis girls came and played and Kristin and Baby R came and played, too. Nana was so happy to see "RoRo". That's what she calls Finley and RoRo. It was great watching all the toddler herd play together again.

I had forgotten how busy I was with 3 toddlers. Good grief! Between us and the Davis girls we had 5 toddlers at the park and it was like herding cats. And me and Wendy used to go there by ourselves.

Playing the all time favorite, "Ring Around the Rosie!"

By the end of the day all of our faces hurt from smiling too much. It was the best day ever and I cannot believe that she will remain a part of our lives. What an amazing ending to such a long hard road. I love this child!!

Can you tell what this says?

2012-01-29T12:24:00.000-08:00

James' first handwritten card--to Mimi
I am loving this writing stuff!!!

Neighbor's Junk = My Treasure

2012-01-28T12:22:00.000-08:00

Just wanted to say thanks to my neighbor for throwing away this great chalk board. It fit just perfectly on our back porch! Yay!!

Getting Gas

2012-01-28T11:09:00.000-08:00

I gotta say that James is one lucky kid. Jeremy does everything with this kid. No matter what we are doing if James is capable of helping in any way Jeremy includes him. We stopped for gas today and Jeremy wanted to show James how to fill up the car. These two are too cute!
"Here Mommy. Here's your credit card."

"It was $40??"

"I got you some gas mom!"

Sugar Letters

2012-01-27T19:01:00.001-08:00

James is still enjoying forming letters and is now wanting to start writing some on his own so I've had to get creative on ways we can practice. I made him a sugar bowl today and we sat in the floor and practiced some of our letters that take more than one stroke (meaning you have to lift your pencil/finger at some point to form the letter). It may sound nerdy to you that I am already teaching him about strokes, but since he's so eager to learn his letters I figure I might as well teach him the correct way to form them right off the bat.

Here he is working on the letter R. There's the down stroke and then you lift your pencil/finger and come up to the top of the letter to make the final stroke.

This was fun and it created very little mess. I did have to sweep afterwards, but only a little. I would have done sand outside, but it was cold on this particular day. Plus, sugar is sweet and fun to lick off your fingers!

Counting Button Holes

2012-01-27T18:54:00.001-08:00

This is called a file folder game. You take a file folder and decide on an activity to put inside. I actually made this back when I was teaching, but it came in handy today with James and his counting. I just cut out 12 buttons (constuction paper circles) and drew dots on them ranging from 1-12 (make sure you only use numbers that you know your child can one to one correspond* to or this will be frustrating). Then I cut small squares and put number stickers on them (you could easily just write the numbers) and laminated everything. The number squares stick to the file folder with velcro dots and that also helps keep the pieces together when you're done.

Easy, educational and fun!

**one to one correspond just means that your child can point to the dot and say the right number at the same time.

Our Work This Week

2012-01-26T07:28:00.000-08:00

Our week has been full of many fun things, but the thing that has brought us the most joy this week is definitely our new little guy. We've been doing lots of baby watching this week. I have to say, I had no idea my little James was such a baby lover. Although he is not interested in holding him, which is ok by me, and gets very shy when Lee looks at him and we tell him to "talk to him", he loves watching him and delights in his every move. Sweet kid!
Mixed in with our baby watching has been lots of learning, too. My little Remi is turning in to quite the counter. We've been practicing counting for a while and he's now able to place ten objects into a bowl while counting them. This has been a great activity for him and I can't wait to keep adding more and more objects to his pile.

We've been reading all our old baby books to our new friend and it's been fun to revist books that brought me so much joy with Baby James.

This is a game I've been playing with James to teach him to read the faces of a die. He's quite good now and I'm starting to see faint glimpses of Yatzee in our future! All you do is roll the die and graph the result. Super easy and fun when played together or as a race.

We've also listened to this guy a few times this week. Do you remember him? My mom just got him off Ebay and is hoping the grandkids love him as much as my brother and I did as a kid. I gotta say that I've been shocked that I actually remember the stories and the lyrics to the songs. I loved this toy growing up.

Our little love found his finger this week, too. He has been working day and night to get a finger in his mouth to suck and he finally made it work. It's interesting that he likes to suck his pointer finger. I'm all for finger sucking, his paci was driving me nuts!

James cannot get enough of "It's a Match" from Discovery Toys. It has two workbooks that you pick pages out of and slide into this little case and match the pictures. He loves this toy and it's great for developing those pre-reading skills.

I also found this "Little Touch" lapbook at the thrift store and 6 books that go with it. It would have cost me over $200 if I would have bought all this full price (which I would have never done); however, at the thrift store I got it all for $11. The boys have loved the pages off this thing and can work it totally independently now. It's been a hit.

We've also done lots of fishing for letters this week with our "AB SEAS" game from Discovery Toys. You fish out the capital letters from this little ocean and then match it either to the uppercase of lowercase letters on the corresponding mats. It's fun, educational, and a great fine and gross motor practice all-in-one!

Here's the mats where you match the letter. Remi has to say the letter's name before he lays it down and James says the sound. Simple, but fun.

More baby gazing.

I got this little tracing books at Lakeshore this week. I really like them. You use a dry erase marker on them and James has enjoyed having another way to practice his letters. Yes, he is still letter crazy and is actually forming about 5-10 letters on his own now. I can't believe it!

James got this game for Christmas and it has been a great toy for the bathtub. He asks to do it pretty much every time he bathes. You just match the top and bottom of the animals and the pieces stick to the tile. Brilliant!

It's been a great week at our house. Hope you've had one just as wonderful!

I'm Doing The Best I Can

2012-01-25T18:31:00.000-08:00

Do you ever feel like the little efforts that you make just aren't enough? Today I received a call from our agency about taking in another child, a one year old. They thought I had said we would take in two kids and so it was a misunderstanding, but I hate hearing about other kids in need that I just can't help.

Sometimes I get overwhelmed knowing about all the kids that need intervention and haven't gotten it yet or when I think about all the kids in the world that need to be adopted and are still waiting. I saw this video on a blog today and was so refreshed by this sweet little story.

Your efforts may not be directed towards foster care or adoption, but we are all passionate about something: raising our kids, working our jobs, saving the planet, bettering our health . . . whatever it is that you are doing--just do your best. Every little bit matters :)

Star Gazing

2012-01-25T18:06:00.001-08:00

I sure enjoyed sitting out on the porch star gazing with this guy tonight. We bundled up in blankets and sat outside watching cars, searching for stars and talking about our day. He's such a fun guy!

Reading to My Baby

2012-01-25T17:51:00.001-08:00

I've really been enjoying reading to my baby this week. He is a joy to play with and you have to use your time with him wisely because he is only awake about an hour in between naps. I forget how much a 2 month old sleeps. Anyway, I've loved having out all our old baby books and watching him look intently at each page.

Well, I figured since I couldn't post pictures cute pictures of him enjoying the book that you should at least get to see some cute babies.

Needy Foster Mom + Needy Boy = Love At First Sight

2012-01-21T11:34:00.000-08:00

I've been debating on how to introduce my newest little friend. I want you to get to know him like I have, but pictures don't tell the whole story. Should I just show you back-of-the-head pictures that give you a little clue as to what he looks like? No, I get tired of only showing back of the head pictures and although this little guy has some wonderful hair the best part about him is his nose and his eyes.

Should I show you cute pictures of his little round tummy? No, although his tummy is round and soft and perfectly perfect there's more to this little guy than a cute little round tummy.

I would love to post videos of his cute little coo and his sweet little grin that already lights up when I talk to him. I would love to show you how he so contently sits in my arms and looks into my eyes like a little angel. I would love for you to see how he struggles during tummy time and gets so mad and looks at me asking, "Why would you ever even dream of laying me down that way?"

Everything I wanted to post just seemed so typical 2 month old. I want you to know this dream baby is not typical. He is precious beyond words and God (and CPS, whom I love and will never talk bad about again) placed His protective hand over this little guys life and brought him out of a situation that I may never fully understand. This little man has been through stuff. I don't know what kind of stuff, but there was stuff.

So I leave you with this picture. This picture, that I could have lived my whole life without ever seeing and been fine, is just one of 100 that I have taken of our little guy. But it gives you a glimpse into my new loves little life. Though he is perfect, and happy, and sweet, and adorable, he is hurt. I've often said that being a foster mom is hard, but being a foster kid is harder. Life got hard real fast for this little 2 month old. Please pray for him. Please pray for his family, who we haven't met but are trusting that the Lord is working His love into their lives right now. Please pray for his healing and for his future. We don't know how long he will be with us, but we know that we are enjoying every single second.

Learning Naturally Through Play

2012-01-18T14:39:00.001-08:00

I loved this blog post today. I totally agree that the most natural way for our kids to learn is through meaningful play and purposeful conversations. Check it out if you are interested.

I also really loved this blog today. It is a gentle reminder that all kids are different. As a mom I can read other people's blogs and think, "Gosh, my kid can't do that!" Or "Gosh my kid was doing that months ago!" It's important to remember that all kids are different and comparisons will just make you crazy. I like to view blogs for ideas and for encouragement, but I try very hard to stay away from feeling bad about myself for something my kid can't do and on the flip side feeling smug about what he can do. James is very gifted in many areas, but he is also very challenged in others. Read this momma's blog if you need encouragement on comparisons.

My Name is James

2012-01-14T23:01:00.000-08:00

For the past week James has wanted to do nothing else but trace his letters (and who are we kidding, play a million games of ZINGO). He has fallen in love with his new writing skill and tonight in the bathtub I saw all his hard work pay off . . .

He wrote his name!!! This may sound strange, but this thrills me. He is the greatest!!!

One Last Treat

2012-01-14T12:00:00.001-08:00

This picture is the most hilarious picture I've ever taken and I'll tell you why. Nana was all packed up about to leave us forever and yet she needed one last treat. Her bags were packed, her toys were on the front porch, her coat was on, her ride was here, her kisses had been kissed, and yet she noticed that daddy made himself a little bowl of puppy chow and set it on the counter. She ran and got her stool, climbed up and started shoveling it in. Bite after bite after bite.
Is that not hilarious? Her life is about to TOTALLY change and yet she races to grab one last treat! This photo opp brought so much joy to a terribly sad moment in time. I'm so thankful to have it. She is a hoot!

My Nana Bear

2012-01-14T11:36:00.001-08:00

Our Nana Bear is gone. We are happy for her to get to start her new life as a Bruce, but we are struggling with our empty nest. Now don't get me wrong, our house isn't empty. We have James who we love and adore, but the feeling that something is missing is definitely present. She was a loud, spunky source of joy and everyone feels her absence.

Even though as foster parents we knew this day would most likely come (85% of foster kids go back to their families) it is still very painful. God gave Jeremy and I an amazing gift when He blessed us with the idea of foster care. We were committed to becoming Nana's mommy and daddy if even for a short time and we will become another child's mommy and daddy the moment they come into our house, but mommies and daddies are not meant to say goodbye. It's tough. It's sad. But God is continually assuring us that He is protecting Nana. I'm more than thankful for His presence in her story.

Nana's new mommy has been checking in with me to see how I'm doing. Is that not the most thoughtful thing ever? In her excitement and new beginning she knows I'm dealing with the loss of someone great. She also reassured me this morning that Nana slept great (which was my #1 area of concern because I didn't want her to be sad once night time came) and she texted me to see what she should order Nana for breakfast because they were out eating at I HOP.

I never in my wildest dreams thought she would be placed with someone so thoughtful. Nana is going to be fine. We are going to be fine. I'm humbled by how the Lord has comforted me during all of this. He cares. And my friends care. I'm so thankful for all of you who have checked in on us and prayed for her. I know she is where she is because you prayed for God to intervene and give this child a chance. Prayer works! She is a testimony of that.

We are excited to open our home once again. My arms are craving a child to comfort and hold. My heart is ready to open itself up and fully love a little human even though it knows that human will most likely leave and hurt it so badly. I feel like I am 9 months pregnant and just waiting for labor to start. I'm nesting. I'm sleepy (I think my body knows that I'm about to be loosing lots of sleep). I know that at any moment our phone will ring and new soul will be coming into my home. Who are they? Are they born yet? Are they hurting? Are they scared? Are they hungry? Who are their parents? Are they hurting? Are they scared? Are they hungry?

I want to ask that when you think of us, pray for Nana. When you think of us, pray for our future child who needs intervention. When you think of us, pray for our future child's family and their need for a Savior. When you think of us, pray for our friends, the Chambers, who just found out their foster kids are leaving and returning to a sad place. When you think of us, pray for our friends, the Mathis', who love their foster child and are waiting to see how the Lord is going to write his story.

Being a foster family is hard. Being a foster child is harder. We're thankful to be doing this.

New Discovery Toys Book--So Cute!

2012-01-13T18:13:00.000-08:00

This is a new product being carried by Discovery Toys. It's actually on sale right now and I love it. These two girls travel the world and learn different greetings and learn about the different styles of other girls in other countries. I love the concept and I love the interaction pieces in the back.

Look at the video if you want to know more. If you'd like one let me know. I'll be placing an order this week and we can save on shipping!! Check out the rest of our New Year's Sale here :)

James' First Story

2012-01-11T12:13:00.001-08:00

James wanted to write a story so I had him select three animals out of the tub and those were our characters.

Then we talked about where the animals were, what they saw, and what they said. Ha! What a fun day at the zoo!!!

What's All The Fun About?

2012-01-09T11:30:00.000-08:00

This was my child yesterday. Excited!! Why was he so excited?
Why was he cheering and laughing so hard that I couldn't get a clear picture of him?

What is so fun that you scream and shout and bang your hands on the table?

Honestly this was a new kind of excitement for him. He was really thrilled.

You can tell by his crazy pictures that he really loves . . .

Tracing his letters. I'm not sure why these letters were so fun yesterday and where the sudden desire to learn to write came from, but it's here and it's big!

He has never enjoyed tracing, never enjoyed coloring, and never taken any interest in learning to write his letters, but yesterday he woke up from nap and asked to trace letters. He then spent the entire afternoon tracing and bragging about his new skill and has even done his whole alphabet today.

I'm actually really glad this happened, but I'm not sure what caused it. Anyway, that's what all the excitement was about. I guess when your 2 1/2 anything can be exciting.

And don't think our Nana Bear was left out of the tracing time. She has a little book of opposites that she loves to color in and she went to town as well. She loves to color and will always choose that activity over anything.

Twinkies!!

2012-01-09T11:21:00.001-08:00

Nana's love for my mom is getting out of control! Now they are twins! She loves all things girly, all things dress-up, and all things colorful so what better way for my mom to brighten Nana's day then to bring her a new scarf!

When we were at my mom's house last night, Nana wore her scarft the whole time. So my mom surprised her with her own this morning after church. She has loved wearing it all day.

And of course this little guy wanted one so my mom asked him what color he wanted and he chose green. She raced home and knitted him one and surprised him with it when he woke up from nap. What a grandma!!!

Weekly Randoms

2012-01-07T18:01:00.001-08:00

Our week has been absolutely fabulous. Jeremy turned 30 this week so we've been celebrating, eating, hanging out with friends and today we had a breakfast party. It was nice having most of his favorite people here and seeing everyone's kids play. I can't believe he is 30. I met him at 16. How is he 30? Nevertheless here is the wreath I made for the front door. I love it and it was so simple to make. If you want one go check out my friend Laurie's blog she gives step by step instructions for how to make one. I'm going to be reusing this for James' birthday coming up in April.
We also did some IKEA shopping this week and scored some great shelves for our garage. I haven't shown you pics of the furniture we bought last week, but IKEA has been helping our home out a lot lately! My friend at church gave me $200 in store credit a few years ago and I just finished it off this week on these beauties.
Our garage has needed more shelving because I keep accumulating more and more kid stuff. I love the big tall shelf. It's just what I've been needing to store our books on. Yay for organization. The short shelf on the right is also from IKEA and is now our sensory tub shelf. All my sensory tub stuff is stored there and easy to get to. I'm so happy.

Here's a close up of how I store our theme books. Many books are stored in the house on our book shelves, but if they are specifically for a theme and not being used in everyday life then they stay in the garage in these magazine bins. I bought these last year at IKEA. So handy!

This is on the other side of the garage and I actually have an empty bookcase to store more stuff! The pegboard has been a great organizing thing, too.

Here it is close up. I just hang little games and manipulatives on it that we use in our toddler trays. If a toy is put away then it's out of sight out of mind for me. I like hanging up these toys and labeling all my bins to help remind me what I already have.

My count down begins again. The last time I thought Nana was leaving I began to get emotional about all the things I was doing with her "for the last time". I remember crying the night I was giving her a bath knowing it was the last time I would ever bathe her again. Most parents don't ever have to have thoughts like that, but as a foster mom it's reality. A reality that I am proud to endure, but a sad reality. Well, today when I was clipping her nails I suddenly realized that this would most likely be the last time I ever clip her nails again. Ouch! I hope her new mommy loves her short stubby fingers and toes as much as I do. :(

These little steamers have been rocking my world lately. I love them and basically you can have all you want for very little calories. A serving of this (which was a generous amount) was only 45 calories. I'm not dieting, but I am trying to do better. These are coated in a yummy cheese sauce and I loved them. I think it was like $1.50 per bag and the bag lasts for at least 2 meals at our house. I had the cauliflower, broccoli, and carrot one tonight and it was delicious!

Hope you've had a wonderful week. Enjoy your family this week!!

Flannel Board

2012-01-07T11:00:00.000-08:00

We are loving our new flannel board. It was my gift from Jeremy's family. His brother, Jared, made it and it's awesome. I don't have many accessories for it yet, but we have the David and Goliath story set and we have some counting pieces for it. It will fit in perfectly as we begin to practice telling our own stories and counting to 100 and adding and subtracting small numbers. Yay!
Oh, and the kids love it, too.

Window Retellings

2012-01-04T20:15:00.000-08:00

I told you that I was going to start working very hard on retellings (which is just teacher lingo for telling a story/song/poem again in your own words) and I had the perfect opportunity today. The boys were playing with their window shapes (a wonderful Discovery Toys product might I add) and James happened to build a house. We started singing a familiar song we know while we built. It's been a fun idea all morning!

The wise man built his house upon the rock. The wise man built his house upon the rock. The wise man built his house upon the rock and the rains came tumbling down.

The rains came down (notice the rain drop) and the floods came up. The rains came down and the floods came up. The rains came down and the floods came up and the house on the rock stood FIRM!

The foolish man built his house upon the sand. The foolish man built his house upon the sand. The foolish man built his house upon the sand and the rains came tumbling down.

The rains came down and the floods came up. The rains came down and the floods came up. The rains came down and the floods came up . . .

And the house on the sand went SPLAT!

Our Winter Theme

2012-01-04T12:40:00.001-08:00

We started our Winter Theme this week and I'm loving it so far. I couldn't decide what to do our on big, blank, back wall so I decided we would make a giant gingerbread house and decorate it. The kids are so excited about it.

They fell in love with the book "The Gingerbread Man" so we made our men yesterday and have hung them on our wall. We will be using that book as our main retelling book for this theme. I'm trying really hard to do lots of repeated readings with the kids and having them retell the story in pretend play, block play, with puppets, and on the flannel board. I know from teaching how important it is to build that reading comprehension with kids so we're trying.

The kids made pattern strips to decorate the outside of our house. It's suppose to look like candy. I'm loving the new found learning of patterns. We hadn't been doing much patterning around here, but I've been trying to work it in every now and then and they are catching on pretty fast.

Here's the boys coloring a little gingerbread book I had from teaching Kinder. It's set to the tune of "I'm a Little Teapot".

As always if you need anything that I have please call or email me. I love sharing. We are going to be focusing on animals that hibernate, snowmen, and cold weather related things in addition to our gingerbread house to complete our winter theme.

Best Buds

2012-01-02T17:59:00.000-08:00

James and Remi really missed each other over the Christmas break. They were inseperable today. I found them like this while they were watching a little movie before lunch. BFF!

I Like This Guy!

2012-01-02T17:58:00.000-08:00

My Big Bike Rider

2011-12-31T19:14:00.001-08:00

This is James and his new bike. He loves it. He wants to ride it all the time. In fact, this is our first ever stroll around the block and when I mean block--I mean two blocks. The child did not want to stop. He kept getting off and rubbing his bottom because as we all know bikes hurt. He rode til he was exhausted!

I know that all kids love bikes. I know that every parent has that moment when their kid first discovers their love of speed, but I had no idea it would come at 2 and 1/2 years old. He should still be a baby!! But he's not. He's a boy and he loves his bike.

He is most certainly the coolest boy I know. I cannot wait to watch him and his bike get better aquainted. And hopefully his bottom will toughen up soon because he is still rubbing it.

Our Little Christmas

2011-12-31T18:57:00.000-08:00

Before all the traveling and family Christmas celebrations began we decided to do our own little family Christmas at home. We still haven't established what will be "our" traditions, but we do know that stockings are important to us both and letting the kids run into the living room to see their gifts was also important to us both. Here are the kids waiting for Daddy to say "let's go"!
We had a display of cardboard blocks set up for James to crash through and a doll house set up for Nana to run to and it ended up both kids ran to the doll house and played with it non-stop. We finally had to make them go open their stockings. I'm so happy for Nana to have this doll house. She is girly girly girly and this is a great toy for her. It was actually donated by sweet people who love to generously bless foster kids. I specifically asked for this toy and asked for it to be the African American family version and they bought it for her. It's perfect!

Opening up her gifts. We knew our kids were going to be spoiled rotten by our family so we tried to pick gifts that no one else would give them. We loaded them up with new puzzles and some new bath toys.

We were also given a set of cardboard blocks from Buckner and that was James' big surprise. We had a few that I had gotten at a thrift store, but now we have tons! He and Remi will be building for hours.

I could not be a more blessed Momma. I love that God has granted me more time with Nana and that she was able to spend yet another Christmas with us. James has grown and changed and bloomed so much this year. I just can't believe he is so big and capable. I'm so thankful for my life, my Savior, and my family!

Christmas with Mammy and Papa

2011-12-31T18:43:00.001-08:00

We ended our Christmas celebrations with Christmas at Mammy and Papa's. My brother and his kids came up for the week and we have had so much fun hanging out and playing with all the kids. My mom's yearly tradition is to make the kids matching Christmas pajamas and then we try to take a picture of everyone together wearing them. This year was better than most year's but it is still difficult to get a decent pic of four little ones. Aren't the boys so sweet?!

James' favorite present of the day was the frog that Mammy gave him. He loves frogs and turtles and this one has a little screen on its belly that shows different pictures. Mammy programmed pics of him and them and us on it and he loves it.

See!

We took a walk after opening presents and if you can't tell by the picture there are five kids walking (Remi was here also) and we made quite the line down the street. You should of seen us trying to cross the street with five kids. It was a joke!

Then we came back and the boys raced cars and bikes around the driveway.

James was so very sweet to share his brand new bike with his cousin. He didn't even bat an eye about sharing. Foster liked using the neighbors driveway as a ramp, too! Nana and her favorite person on earth. No really, she loves Mammy more than me. I'm ok with it.

We've had lots of time at Mammy's house. I think we've only come home this week for baths and bed time. The kids have had fun playing blocks. . .

tackling Mammy. . .

and this morning we took everyone to the mall playarea and the kids played themselves silly. Here's Mammy and her girls!

I'm so thankful for my brother and his kids. I'm so thankful for my mom and the fact that she lives close by. I'm so thankful to end our Christmas time with them and have enjoyed every minute.

Christmas with G-Dad

2011-12-31T18:32:00.001-08:00

We had Christmas dinner at G-Dad's house, my dad, and all the cousins got to play and squeal and run and giggle and do "cousin" things all over the place. The boys played hide-and-seek upstairs while the girls rocked their babies.
We tried to get a great picture of all four grandkids on the fireplace and ended up with some hilarious shots of some hilarious kids. I can't post any more than this because of Nana's privacy, but I got some good ones.
James loved his new puzzles, new coins, and farm set that G-Dad gave him. And Nana loved her new babies and bath toys that she got. We had a nice time eating and being together.

My dad is the king of traditions. You can always expect the red sweater, the Christmas tree table, the stockings on the fire place, and the yearly coins from him every year. I'm assuming when my kids remember Christmas with their G-Dad that they will remember the red sweater.

He also has a tradition of pulling a quarter out of the kids ears whenever he or they leave. Each kid loves it and stands very still. I remember my grandpa, Pop, doing this to me and James loves getting a quarter pulled out of his ear.

How does he do that?

So glad we got to spend Christmas evening with my dad, his friend Glenda, and my brother and his kids. I'm so very thankful for all of James' grandparents and for his cousins, Laney and Foster.

Christmas with Mimi and Randad

2011-12-31T18:19:00.000-08:00

Christmas could not have been more perfect this year. Jeremy was actually off on Christmas day this year and we were able to take a nice long trip to Amarillo. The kids were spoiled rotten and we got to spend time with each and every member of the family and that seldom happens on our short trips.
James was adoring all the adoring. His aunts and uncles are CRAZY about him and let's not even talk about how CRAZY his Mimi and Randad are for him. He had a blast playing with everyone!
Our Nana Bear loved hanging out on Abbi's arm and dressing up with makeup, beads, her new butterfly outfit and all things girly. We could not have been more happy to share another holiday with this sweet girl and I was secretly glad that her and Abbi got to see each other again. We didn't get to take her for Thanksgiving and those two girls are perfect for each other.

James got a new bike for Christmas from his Randad and he has already worn the wheels off that thing. Well not really, but he will in time. I'll post more about his cool bike later, but let's just say he loves it and it super great at it.

Because of the snow we got on Christmas morning, Babaw was unable to drive out for presents and so we went to see him later in the morning and the kiddos loved helping him open his new gifts. Babaw is a bit smitten with Ms. Nana himself.

Joseph was always available for whatever James needed. He helped give him a boost around the house on his new bike since we couldn't ride outside.

I think this picture sums up how James feels about his Uncle JoJo.

Thank you Srader Bunch for loving on our kiddos and blessing us with way too many gifts. We love being with y'all especially for fun times like Christmas!!!

My New Goat

2011-12-21T11:42:00.001-08:00

Many of my friends and family know that I've always wanted a pet goat. I've dreamed of seeing a cute little goat outside in my backyard running, jumping, eating various things, and being a sweet pet. Well . . .

I finally got the goat that I've always wanted. She's so cute and playful and loves her new home. Although I know nothing about taking care of goats, this one is pretty easy to care for. All I have to do is pray for her.

What? Does is sound weird that I pray for my goat? Well, that's all she needs from me. You see my goat isn't actually living in my backyard like I had planned. She lives in Africa with a family I've never met. I know she loves it there though because she's needed. She loves to help her new family earn income and she loves to give them warm healthy milk each day. She has high hopes of becoming pregnant and making more and more goats to play with.

You see, when I thought about what I wanted for Christmas all I could really think about were wants. I had no real needs in my life. I wanted mainly things for my children and a few things that make my life a little easier, but I didn't NEED anything. My goat now belongs to a family who NEEDED her to live. NEEDED her to make ends meat. NEEDED her to nurish their children and NEEDED to be purchased by me. I've spent $75 on most everyone in my family. It didn't hurt me one bit to spend $75 on my goat. I love her! I have high hopes for her! I know that she will make a difference. I pray that she will be a blessing.

This will be the 8th goat that Jeremy and I have helped a family get and although I've only heard stories about 2 of our goats I know how valuable they are. Our two African "daughters" love their goats and rely on their goats and take pictures with their goats and write to us about their goats.

Who knew that the goat I always wanted would make such a difference in the world? Go here if you would like to buy a goat for your family and for your precious neighbor oversees. You won't regret this Christmas gift and it will never ever ever be returned by it's owner. They will love it and you will be able to be Jesus to someone :) Merry Christmas!!

Away in the Manger--By: The Butterfly Pirate

2011-12-19T17:41:00.000-08:00

I'll get to the cute song in a minute, but let me explain why my kids have towels (ahem, I mean pirate hats) on their heads. As I try and master the art of black girl hair care, I know that my Nana Bear needs to start sleeping in a head scarf. So I've been working with her on leaving things on her head---hence the towel.

On this particular night it was a butterfly towel that was chosen for her and her little side kick had to match. So James decided they were butterfly pirates and they wore these for hours. Brilliant!! Now on to more cute pics and an adorable song.

Even pirates know about the day Jesus was born :)

I sure love my butterfly pirates!

Whatcha Looking At?

2011-12-19T17:38:00.000-08:00

Whatcha looking at, Nana?

Oh, James is in there.
Ok.

Here's What We've Been Reading

2011-12-16T10:33:00.001-08:00

We have lots of favorite books and different ones are favorites at different times. But right now here are our favorites.
Five Little Ducks
By: Ian Beck
The Little Mouse, The Red Ripe Strawberry, and The Big Hungry Bear
By: Don and Audrey Wood

We're Going on a Bear Hunt

By: Micheal Rosen and Helen Oxenbury A Dark Dark Tale

By: Ruth Brown

Quick As A Cricket

By: Audrey Wood

Owl Babies

By: Martin Waddell

The Little Red Hen

A Little Golden Book

Marvin K. Mooney Will You Please Go Now

By: Dr. Seuss

The Three Billy Goats Gruff

By: Paul Galdone

Chicka Chicka Boom Boom

By: Bill Martin Jr.

Where Does The Brown Bear Go?

By: Nicki Weiss

Sometimes I Like to Curl up in a Ball

By: Vicki Churchill

What are the favorite books at your house? I'm always up for getting new books and learning what is actually a hit with other people's kids.

Obstacle Course

2011-12-14T19:17:00.000-08:00

Y'all know that Jeremy loves to create obstacle courses for the kids. Well, today's was loads of fun. First you start by crawling under the dark chair.
Then you burst out and tackle the teddy bear.

Then you climb up the fireplace and ring the bell.

Then you run and climb up onto the couch.

Using all of your bravery you stand up and . . .

Jump off onto the pillows!

Then you seal the finish with a kiss to the mom! Whew! That's hard work.

New Stuff! New Stuff! New Stuff!

2011-12-14T18:56:00.001-08:00

Our playroom changed again today. I love change and this change was needed. Maxey found us this awesome preschool table and it's been in our garage for a few weeks until I got a vision on how to best use it in our playroom. Well, the vision hit me today and I got it all set up and even moved another storage bin (the white one) from James' closet into the playroom to hold all our arts and crafts stuff.

The table is perfect. The kids can reach it perfectly if they sit on our stools or they can stand and reach. Nana is too short to stand comfortably and draw so she uses a little step stool and it's perfect! We've done stamps, paint, markers, tracing, crayons and all kinds of stuff on the table all afternoon. I'm so happy to have it.
You can see the little shelf under the table. It fits perfectly and holds most of our puzzles. I love that this shelf is now out of the way, but still useable. Yay!

Here are the little crafters hard at work.

This is our new Melissa and Doug game. It's called, "Sort and Snap Color Match". I actually bought it for Nana because she is loves sorting and matching colors. Plus, the boys do puzzles all day long and she didn't have anything like that that she really loved. However, the boys have been loving this toy. Nana will have to be a little stronger to fully be able to use this anyway, She can match the colors but the pegs are hard to snap in. Maybe by her birthday she'll be ready.

I also spend a couple of hours printing things of the 1+1+1=1 blog yesterday. That lady is a genius and I love using her stuff. She has these sheets in a binder for her nearly 3 year old to do while her big kids do their calendar work each day. I just love the idea of having binders made up full of activities and so I printed them out and got them all in page protectors and the kids have loved them. I hadn't put them in binders in this picture, but now the kids have a binder with all the letters of the alphabet.

This game isn't new to us, but this little sorter girl is. She is a sorting machine. I love watching her get all serious and focused. She loves to "do school".

And last but not least is James' first Christmas present of the season. His friends Finley and Rowynn hooked him up big time. They got him a guitar and he more than loves it. He has been guarding that thing since we brought it home. He plays and sings and it is oh so cute! He always plays with Finley's guitar when we go over there so they absolutely picked out the most perfect gift for him.

I think he likes it!

FBC's Christmas Concert

2011-12-10T19:06:00.000-08:00

We sure enjoyed our time at First Baptist Carrollton last weekend. James loved getting to see his Mammy and Papa sing with the choir and the music was fantastic. We had perfect seats and the most perfect friends there with us, the Davis'. I'm so glad that I went and got to share the beautiful Christmas music with my two kiddos.

Weekly Learnings

2011-12-10T18:33:00.000-08:00

This week has been full of fun crafts, great learning activities and some fun outdoor play. The cold weather isn't stopping us from having fun and I'm thankful for the productive week.

My Nana Bear is always willing to learn something new so we have begun taking a closer look at letters. We are starting with the letters in her name and mostly just playing sorting and matching games with them right now. She doesn't know their names yet, but she is great at any matching activity so I made her this little match the other day and she did great!
Although it's cold outside, I have 3 toddlers who are in constant need of releasing energy so we set up our bounce house in the garage and it was a hit. We've already cleared our garage out so that we can play out there and I am loving the extra space!

I've been having the kids make their own snacks in the afternoon and it's been a real treat :) On this day we made little mini pizzas out of wheat bread and they loved them! James preferred no sauce on his, but everyone wanted pepperoni. Yummy!!!

We've been doing lots of picture posing around here. This is James' picture that I took for the stocking her made. If you received our Christmas card this week then you know the other picture I took. I wish I could post it to the blog, but maybe someday I can share it. Still waiting on news for Nana. The waiting game is hard, but I can't wait to find out if she's mine!!!!

Exercise meets nature walk. My little movers love to take their push toys around the neighborhood. We've done many a mile this week and it never hurts to take a break to collect leaves and acorns. James is the king of spotting acorns and feels strongly about stopping and pointing them all out. So our walks are long, but fun.

This is our alphabet train puzzle that I just adore. James has loved it for a while now, but Remi has just now started taking a liking to it. I decided one day after he had completed it to have him match foam letters to each letter in his puzzle. It was a wonderful way to get in some extra letter practice, plus it was a challenge to look through the whole train to find the right one. We'll be doing this again soon!

I love taking the kids to Aldi and letting them take their shopping buggy. James took the baby stroller this time and pushed it around gently like a sweet little daddy. Nana was so sweet as she looked for the right groceries and placed things in her basket. They are so fun!

More puzzles. The love of puzzles has exploded at our house. I think we've purchased about 15 puzzles this month. The boys love them and James literally works on them all day. Here's Remi smiling with one he completed. If you have a puzzle lover at your house I hightly recommend the Melissa and Doug box sets. They come with 4 puzzles in them and they are perfect. We have 3 sets right now and the kids love them.

If you look on my right hand tool bar, under educational blogs, and click on 1+1+1=1 then you will see lots of cool ideas for Christmas projects. I'm not sure that I got this one from her, but it came from someone on the right hand side. Anyway, it's Christmas trees made out of different shapes. It took me all of 5 minutes to prepare it and all 3 kids could do it. I loved this activity and I loved all their little trees.

Here's Remi cutting out his stuffing for his stocking. I love the toddler scissors and this was the first time Remi had ever used them. I always forget to get them out and when I needed scraps of paper for their stockings it dawned on me to let them do it. Challenging yet rewarding.

James' finished product. I still have to laminate it, but isn't it sweet. I love how he placed his letters

This is an ornament that we made this week out of scraps of wrapping paper. I just cut them into strips and had the kids paint the ornament with glue and then put the strips down. Then we put some tinsel on it to make it sparkle. All 3 kiddos made this. I will laminate it and put a topper on it, but it will definitely be going up on our tree.

This is our Christmas sensory tub. I put random Christmas objects in it like: bows, ornaments, Christmas erasers (thanks Wendy!), pom poms, tinsel and the letters to spell the name Jesus. They've had fun digging around in there to find stuff. I chose blue rice for this one. I typically like pinto beans, but rice was better for this theme.

Here's the ingredients before I put in the rice.

I saw this craft at Wendy's house and just had to make it. It's adorable. This one is Remi's. After they made them we kept singing "Away in the manger" and they about have it memorized. So many great conversations have already started happening this season. James loves talking about the day Jesus was born.

This is definitely a game off 1+1+1+=1 She has a dice that you can print out that has all the nativity characters on it and then you roll the dice and graph your results. We have played this one on one and in a group several times. I love it!

Hope you've had a great week learning with your kiddos. Don't forget that there are creative people out there that you can follow and use their stuff. I am always looking at other blogs to see what other people are up to.

Christmas Activities

2011-12-02T18:17:00.000-08:00

Although I'm a little unorganized at the moment to begin a new theme, I knew I had to start our Christmas stuff on Dec. 1 to coordinate with advent and our days of giving. So that being said this first picture is the very first Christmas activity that we did. I gave the kids our big glass Christmas tree candy jar and had them search the house for things that were red and green. We talked about how people use these colors to decorate for the holiday and have been pointing that out when we are out and about. They loved collecting little pieces from here and there and placing them in the jar. It now sits on our table and is an adorable decoration.
Here's Nana's angel that she made. We are learning all about the key characters in the nativity and I think the angel is pretty important. Not only does one bring the good news to Mary and Joseph, but also to the shepards.

Wendy told me about this idea of cutting out a 3 foot felt Christmas tree and letting the kids decorate it with felt decorations. Genius!!! They have loved this.

I just hung it on our playroom wall with velcro circles and it works perfectly. I use those for everything because I don't put any staples on my walls. I can't wait to celebrate the season with these two! So excited to start our traditions and teach them more about Jesus.

Christmas Books

2011-12-02T18:03:00.000-08:00

Below is a glimpse at the Christmas books we've been reading here lately. There are many that I absolutely love and think should be in every home and then there are some that are just fun.

My Christmas Stocking is a wonderful book for young kids. It gives a bit of information about the real St. Nicholas and why he loved surprising people with gifts in their stockings. We don't celebrate Santa, so the story of St. Nicholas is one we like to share. I would love for my kids to notice pictures of Santa or see him in the mall and think, "That man loves God and loves others".
This has become a favorite in our house fast! Although the kids are little bewildered when the Gingerbread Man is actually eaten in the end, it's a lot of fun to read. We will be making gingerbread men soon, too. I choose to use the words Gingerbread Cookie right at the end so they can focus on the fact that it was a cookie not a man, but throughout the whole book I do say Gingerbread Man.

This is a little board book that introduces some main characters in the nativity. Simple and fun.

This book is old, but full of good rhymes and stories I had never heard before.

Fun

Every home must have this book. It uses the song "Jingle Bells" to introduce how people in other countries celebrate Christmas. I really like this one.

Fun only because we love the original book, "There was an old lady who swallowed a fly".

Another book that every home must have. I believe this one is only published by Scholastic, but it is fantastic and the illustrations are wonderful.

Fun only because we love the original, "The Little Mouse, The Red Ripe Strawberry, and The Big Hungry Bear"

Beautifully illustrated by Jan Brett. Love her!

What are some of your favorites? If you have older kids I love the book, "Christmas Tapestry". It's for 8 and up. Wonderful love story and my students use to beg for it.

Amarillo Time!!

2011-11-30T19:43:00.001-08:00

We went to Amarillo for Thanksgiving and had a wonderful time visiting everyone. Even though Nana didn't come with us, she had a good time with her family, too. We got to pick her up on our way back in to town so we're happy to have her back.

When we arrived, James was very shy with his Aunt Kaley, but she busted out the bubbles and he warmed up right away.
It's so nice for him to have big uncles to play with. JoJo is a load of fun and they raced, played cars, worked puzzles, etc., all week long.

Kaley showing her bracelet magic.

Rolling around on the trampoline like crazy boys.

Although he was pretty shy with Abbi the whole trip, he did give her a little love.

When we went to eat lunch with Jeremy's Babaw, they took a home tour and looked at all the old pictures of Jeremy when he was a kid.

For Thanksgiving we went out to my Uncle Keith's house and he had loads of stuff for the kids to do. He had goats and dogs and tractors and land. Here's James and his cousin Foster playing with the goats. Y'all know I love goats!

Here's James with my dad, his G-dad. We stayed the night with him Thanksgiving night and James loved playing with my old toys. The old Fisher Price toys are so wonderful!

It was so nice getting to travel a little and visit people. It's been so long since we got to do that and it felt good to go see everyone. Plus, Jeremy's brother just announced that he and his wife are pregnant so we are super excited to have a new Srader on the way!

November Happenings

2011-11-28T10:55:00.001-08:00

November has come and gone and I hope y'all haven't forgot about me by now. I've been a slow poster, but I'm back in the swing of things and should be a little more consistent. Dealing with Nana leaving and coming back, leaving and coming back, leaving and coming back has taken its toll. Anyway, we have certainly been enjoying our time and here are some pics showing a little of our fun.
The boys and I went to Sams and I must say that I had the cutest buggy in the whole store!
We've gone into the attic and pulled out some old favorites again. It's always nice to rotate toys. These guys never get old.

We've been hiking at Arbor Hills and it's so beautiful out there right now. I need to go back to take pics of the kiddos. The Fall leaves are incredible.

My mom got us a set of dishes for our kitchen area and the boys just love making lunch and drinking their drinks. Are they not so cute?!

Jeremy cleaned out the gutters with a little help from his yard crew.

I set up my Discovery Toys at a craft show last weekend and there was a man there making all kinds of lamps and bird houses. I got James this cute gas pump lamp for his room and ended up getting him a bird house, too. I don't have a pic of that.

We came home from Thanksgiving with the stomach bug. We stayed in our pjs all day and moaned and groaned on the couch while watching movies. Nana wasn't sick, but she supported us by lounging around in her pjs, too.

By the end of the day we were feeling better so we started bringing out our Christmas decor. I loved watching the kids work on the trees and read, "The First Christmas". I can't wait to begin our Christmas theme around here and teach them all about the Baby Jesus.

And this is just cute!

Weekly Randoms

2011-11-09T11:57:00.000-08:00

Another week has passed through our lives and we are better off having lived it. I've certainly enjoyed these three this week. We've had fun spending some of what we thought were our last moments together. Nana was suppose to leave us on Wednesday. We packed her things. We said goodbye, our friends and family came and said goodbye. People brought gifts. People cried their eyes out. Her little friends cried and hugged her--however, something has changed and her new family needs more time. More time! We will give them all the time they need because having her here longer is a dream come true. Pray for us. Pray for her. I'm not sure what the future holds, but they asked for more time and we will give them that.

So on to our great week. Here we are riding in style into the mall. Our double stroller has been more than ideal and we have worked it hard. I can pile two kids in the back seat and that's just what we did to get all of us into the mall to go play with our friends.
Nana loves Gracie. Nana loves animals. She tries everyday to catch Gracie and pet her and on this particular day Gracie was more than willing to let a little tiny person love on her.

Every parent knows that basket are a child's favorite toy. Nana decided to play in the blocks rather than with the blocks.

And dumping the basket is always fun, too.

I had a big Discovery Toys event this past weekend for TOTA (Texas Occupational Therapy Assiociation). It was so much fun setting up all the inventory and selling for two days straight. After this event the shelves were almost empty. This was by far the biggest thing I had been a part of so far. The holidays are crazy with events like this and I'm grateful for the business.

We took a nice stroll around the neighborhood a couple of times this week. Nana would not let my mom put her down so my mom may have been a little worn out afterwards, but we had fun. James drives his car or rides his bike when we walk now. How did he get to be so big?

Papa brought over a special treat later in the week. He brought the kids a little wind up chick and they have enjoyed watching it peck all over the house ever since.

We've moved the cars out of the garage and started using it for riding bikes and playing. It's been fun watching the kids play out there and on this particular day they wanted to climb the ladder. We're thinking of converting our garage into a room for school/play. I'm excited to start thinking about the possibility of having more space for that. We want a house full of kids so converting the room is not that crazy of an idea.

And of course a week is not complete unless you see boys sitting in the window in their underwear. These two sillies have been lugging these stools around all week finding new ways to put them to use. Standing and sitting in the window is loads of fun and apparently the "cool" thing to do.

James' new favorite book is "Go Dog! Go!" I love it because the pics match the words and he can almost read it himself. He put Mammy to work this morning by having her read it two times. It's very long so they were there almost 20 minutes. I love that James loves to read. It warms my heart to get to watch him become a little reader.

Hope you enjoyed your week with your kids. We're eager to see how long the Nana Bear will get to stay. Transitioning has not been easy or fun, but I'm not going to complain about getting more time with her.

First Wrestling Match

2011-11-06T06:34:00.000-08:00

This is a moment that will go down in the "James+Remi=BFFE" History books. They had their first official wrestling match. I could not have been more proud to have two boys rolling around in my floor giggling and grunting and smashing each other with their little 20+ pound bodies.

We wrestle all the time. I say we--I mean Jeremy and the boys. But this time Remi just came up and tackled James to the floor and started a huge wrestling match. They were so cute I couldn't stop taking pictures.

What makes it even better was that it was on Halloween and Remi was dressed like Superman. How perfect is that?! I'm wondering if he summoned his inner super hero because he's generally not the instigator. This last picture is priceless. I love it soooooooooo much!

All Work and Very Little Play

2011-11-05T18:25:00.000-07:00

Around here we believe that if a man doesn't work, then he doesn't eat. Just kidding! Well, I'm not kidding because I do believe that, but I don't always make my kids build fences to earn their dinner.

James loves to work with his dad. He also gets a lot of joy from working (which thrills me because Jeremy is a very hard worker and I'm glad James has already learned that from his dad).

After he built a fence we did give him a little time to play. This is his new favorite thing. He goes over to his Mammy's house, right next door, and rides her scooter up and down the hill at the bottom of the driveway.

First he goes down. . .

Then he comes up . . . unless my mom is outside then he asks her to drive it back up.

A Hiking We Will Go

2011-11-05T06:21:00.000-07:00

Last week we had 5 whole days without our Nana Bear. It was a lonely 5 days, but we did get out and enjoy some things together while Daddy was at work. On this particular night we went to a local park that has a great hiking area and we rubbed every kind of tree bark that was offered. This little guy is so much fun and I about never got him to quit hiking. However, I have learned the secret to awakening his obedience---"Hey James, you want to go get some bean burritos and cheese dip from Rosa's?"

Works every time!

Mimi and Randad

2011-11-04T18:18:00.001-07:00

Mimi and Randad came for a little visit and sadly I didn't take many pictures, but I did capture James getting to do what he loves most and that is read along with someone. And I'm proud to say that Randad did the crying baby owl voice in the book "Owl Babies". He's so great!
And by the looks of this picture these two are not having any fun together. Not one bit.

Weekly Learnings

2011-11-02T18:43:00.000-07:00

Wow! This has been a whirlwind of a week and there is so much going on in the Srader home and the blog has taken a serious hit, but I'm back and here's a little of what we've been going through:

My mom is now back from a 20 day trip (she's my third arm so it's good to have her back)

Jeremy's parents came and spoiled our babes for a few days

Nana has been back and forth between our house and her new family's house and it's taken a toll on this momma's heart and home.

We were selected to be "randomly" inspected by the State so we got to prepare for the enforcers to walk through our home. It's easy, but yet it's not easy to have someone inspecting your home.

I've had a cold and am now on the mend

Discovery Toys is keeping me booked with events (which is such a blessing, but it takes time)

Jeremy has been on vacation for 12 out of the last 18 days and it's been fabulous, but I'm a slacker when he's off.

Needless to say these are all very good reasons why I've been out of the blog loop lately and I'm starting to need my routine back. Glad to have had a break, but now lets get to work!!!

Our learnings lately have been Fall related and it is a load of fun to explore all the great things Fall has to offer. We wrote in our journals today and to be honest I waited too long to get this story out of them. I wanted them to write about Halloween and something fun they did, but bringing up past events is hard with 2 year olds. Remi did great! James was not very interested, but they love their journals so writing is fun even if you're not pumped about the topic. Remi wrote about Trick or Treating and had tons to say about his night of collecting treats. Love how he used straight lines this time to represent different things.

James wrote about the Carnival that we went to. He was in love with the bounce houses so it was no surprise when that's what he chose to write about. I love that the green bounce house takes up most of the picture and is centered and that his people are on the outside.

This is our new game from Discovery Toys called "Flip Over". It says on the box that it is for 4 and up, but I highly disagree. Now it might take a while for James to be able to do this game independently, but he loves it now and is great for 2 year old that love games. You simply match the other part of the animal and then press a lever that flips the card over and you begin again. It's great for concentration, great for matching and thinking, and a great conversation piece because all the cards have details on them that can be talked about. For instance, the cow card also has grass and a can of milk on it.

Caught Remi working alone one day and was tickled by what he was doing. Matching his colors and making towers. What a super kid!

I updated the words on our fridge and put in some new sight words and made it a matching game. The words are stuck to the fridge with contact paper and the matching cards are made with the backs of cereal boxes, covered in shipping tape and then I hot glued a magnet on the back. It's great!

The boys made jack-o-lanterns and glued their memory verse on the back, "The Lord is my light and my salvation. Whom shall I fear?"

This is the one picture I have of us carving our pumpkin. Pathetic--I know, but we made one and it was cute . . . until the bugs got into it and then it was disgusting.

We've started our first official experiment and it's been a lot of fun watching the results. I bought some Indian Corn at Wal-Mart and the kids recreated their own. . .
Then we made some predictions as to what might happen if we put our corn in the dirt and began watering it. They had no idea and it was so fun to watch them plant and water this corn. I could tell they were thinking, "Why in the world are we doing this?"

Each kid had a different job. Remi scooped the dirt, Nana buried the corn and James dumped the water.

Then we recorded our work and made some predictions.

Nearly a week later we are starting to see some results. Fun! Fun!!

I hope you've had a fun week of learning. I'm so excited to have more time to learn about Fall and start to prepare for Thanksgiving. I'm full of fun ideas!!!

I'm having an Usborne Book party at my house on Nov 13 at 8pm. If you want to come you will love the books that they have to offer you and your kiddos. The party will not disappoint. If you want to look online and shop through my party link then click here and it will take you to the site. Don't forget to stock up on meaningful Christmas presents (like books) that will last you year round. They may not be the most fun to open, but they bring the greatest reward and that's the love of learning throughout the year. Happy Learnings!!

Weekly Randoms

2011-10-23T12:00:00.001-07:00

This has been a busy, fun, sad, and eventful week and thankfully Jeremy was on vacation all this week so he got to help me get everything done. First, I will start off by saying that we heard this week that Nana will not be staying with us much longer and as sad as it makes me to know that I won't get to be her forever mommy I am praising God in this moment for the family he did provide for her. But all that is for another post.

We headed out to the pumpkin patch on Thursday and to be honest with you we didn't have the best of time there, but it was our own fault. The kids were not interested in taking pictures, which disappointed me and Jeremy and I were just not "enjoying each other's company" on this particular day so we are going to go back next week and try again.

However, I did get this cute shot of the boys posing with Barney. They love Barney and I never thought I would ever want a picture of my kid with a character, but I'm quite proud of this one and they were proud to take it.
Remi stayed the night with us on Saturday night because his parents went to the Ranger game. The boys had so much fun running around the house and playing well past their bedtime. Nana was at her new family's house for the weekend so they had the place all to themselves. While I was cooking dinner I noticed that things got very quiet so I went to investigate. Usually quiet means they are up to no good, but on this particular day they were just quietly reading books in the living room. So cute!

We've been doing a lot of bike riding lately!

You'll notice the "blue line" in the background. Our driveway sits right on the curve of our alley and cars cannot see when they come around that curve. We put that blue line across the driveway to let the kids know how far they could go on their own. It works really well and they know that if they cross that line without an adult they are in BIG trouble. Just a little word of advice to anyone that is having problems with a child crossing a boundary. Make it clearly marked, practice using it correctly and then discipline them if it is disobeyed.

Slide hair!!!

He's become quite the climber. He even sleeps on the top bunk now because he can climb his own ladder :)

My boys!!

Sweet little girl exploring the park.

This is the boy's new favorite game. They stand in James' room with little plastic farm animals and try to chunk them up into the miniblinds. If one actually stays they rejoice at the top of their lungs. It's loads of fun. Can't you tell?

Hope you had a great week. Our house is definitely going through transition right now, but I have been clinging to James' memory verse this week: The Lord is perfect in all of His ways and loving towards all He has made. He perfectly answered all of our prayers for our little Nana and loves her more than we ever could and very graciously prepared a wonderful family for her.

Camping Out

2011-10-19T11:24:00.001-07:00

Jeremy and James had their first camp out this week and boy was it an exciting time at our house. James was so excited to get to set up the tent, make a fire, tell camping stories, and sleep with daddy in the tent. Me and Nana did everything but sleep in the tent. It was a "No Girls Allowed" kinda night.

Here's Nana helping get the fired started.

James wore our fire starting cardboard box around on his head for most of the evening.

James got to find and use his first poking stick. Jeremy was so proud!

Getting the bed ready. James took his turtle pillow and his doggy to sleep with.

Once it got dark we brought out some glow wands and told campfire stories.

The evening was perfect until the cold front and rain blew in. The boys fell asleep in the tent but ended up having to come in because the tent was leaking and dripping water all over the bed. However, we now know that the same camping blood that runs through Jeremy's veins also runs through James' veins so we can now book our first official "Srader Camping Trip". So happy!!

G-Dad to the Rescue

2011-10-19T11:07:00.000-07:00

My dad came to rescue us this week and we are so very thankful for his willingness to help. Our van is broken and needs a lot of repairs and so he towed us a new van from his car lot in Amarillo and towed our's back to have his mechanic fix it. We could not be more thankful for his help. With 3 toddlers around we do not need to be a one car family.

James was pretty pumped to get a visit from a grandparent. He had been looking forward to his arrival all day and even thought he spotted him while we were shopping at Aldi. Silly boy!
Nana put him right to work once he sat down. She brought him her favorite book and asked that he read it. This girl is a reading machine!

Here are the boys unloading the new van. James was a great help getting it unstrapped and off the tow dolly.

I love watching him to big boy things. If I asked him a question or asked him to turn and smile for the camera he'd say, "Not now momma. I'm working".

Exploring the new van.

Here they are getting our broken van strapped to the dolly. Bye Bye van. Hope to see you again soon.

Thanks for rescuing us, dad. And thanks for driving the trip and bringing us the loaner van. We could not make it without your help!!

Our Girls

2011-10-12T19:28:00.001-07:00

I have to tell you about our latest girl that we sponsor from World Vision, but first let me introduce the idea of World Vision for those of you that don't know or haven't yet decided to sponsor a child.

World Vision is an organization that is near and dear to my heart. Jeremy and I have been sponsoring 2 girls for nearly 6 years now and I can't say enough about how it has changed us, softened us, and blessed us. You simply sponsor a child or two or three and each month you pay $35 for each child. This meets the family's basic needs, sends the child to school, and provides medical care for the child. It's amazing.

Well we got a letter today saying that one of the children we sponsor, Hellen, is no longer going to be partnered with World Vision. This made me totally sad until I heard that the reason why is because now her community is doing great and is capable of caring for themselves. This makes my heart happy. You'll see a pic of her later.

This is our newest girl, Leticia. I won't tell you her country because you do have to be private about info like that, but I'm in love with her already. She lives with her grandma and her brother and sister. Her grandma makes $1 a day. SERIOUSLY!!! I'm amazed at this. Amazed. . . and please don't tell me that the cost of living is cheaper where they live. No grandma should be raising 3 kids on a $1 a day ANYWHERE!!!!.

Anyway, I can't wait to get to know this little darling and begin corresponding with her. Isn't she precious!
This is Hellen. We sent her some birthday money last year and whenever you do that they send you a picture of the child with the things that they bought. This picture was from 2 years ago and it makes me so happy to remember her getting this goat, and the dress, socks and shoes for her birthday. The last letter I got from Hellen stated that she now has 5 goats and that two of them are pregnant. They drink the goat's milk, make cheese, and sell the babies. It's amazing that our birthday gift to her now generates her family income and nutrition.

I could tell you a million stories about these girls and the blessing they have been to us and us to them. I wish everyone would sponsor a child or two or three.

This is our little girl, Marion, that we are still sponsoring. We've had her since the beginning. This picture is from a few years ago and it shows what she bought with her birthday money. She got school clothes, a mattress, a dress, shoes, a backpack and school supplies. I was amazed that her sweet family allowed her to spend all the money on herself. I'm sure her momma wanted some new clothes, but everything was purchased for Marion. I love this sweet family. I remember her writing me about when her little brother was born and when I saw this picture it was so neat to see her little toddler brother walking around. :)

I hope that this holiday season you will decide to sponsor a child, but if you are not able to do that then please consider giving gifts that last. Go to www.worldvision.org and give goats or chickens, or clothes or whatever to families in need. You can give them the gift in someone's name and that can be their Christmas present. World Vision will send you a sweet little card that you can wrap and give to your family member as their gift. For instance, one year we gave Jeremy's siblings the gift of chickens and Jeremy's mom got given a goat. You have no idea how one goat can literally change someone's life. I have an idea! I have Hellen who no longer needs assistance because her family is now generating income that is stable.

Weekly Learnings

2011-10-12T18:48:00.000-07:00

This has already been a great week for learning. These kiddos are so much fun to work with each day and they enjoy learning so much and it delights my little momma soul. I know I've said before on here that I LOVE THE PEGBOARD FROM DISCOVERY TOYS, but let me just say it again. . . I love the pegboard from Discovery Toys. It is my all time favorite--right now-- and is used every single day in this house. (My pegboard is the old version, the new version is the same colors but instead of all circles the pegs are different shapes)

Here's Remi sorting his colors. Now this is no ordinary color sort because he is having to sort the colors (mentally) and line them up on the pegboard. Tricky Tricky!! He did great.

All done! Masterpiece!!!

Then he had to take them from his pegboard and transfer them to the correct colored bowl (which just happen to be the Flip Flop Face bowls that I ADORE AS WELL!!!) There was sooo much thinking in this activity that I was sure he would need some playtime after this, but nooooo he wanted to do it again, and again, and again!! Love this kid.

***let me just say that if you do not have a set of primary colored bowls or cups in your house go get some. You don't have to buy the Flip Flop Faces from DT (although your kids would love them). Just go to the dollar store or something and get all the primary colors. I can't tell you how many countless activities you can do with sorting in bowls and cups. It's endless!!!

We used more of our pumpkin sheets today and Remi did some capital letter matching with foam letters

And James did a number recognition activity where he had to circle the number I called out. The first row of pumpkins was labeled 1-10 but backwards so 10-1. The second row was labeled 11-20 and the third row was labeled 20-11. This was a toughy because he's not quite fluent on his teens yet. Plus, drawing a circle around a small object is super hard for this guy.

You can see his work here: We weren't able to do the second row today because he was maxed out at that point and I did have to fold the paper to only show one row at a time because all the numbers were overwhelming. The one perfect circle around the 4 is me helping him do the first one.

Here's Nana doodling during the boys "tub" time. She loves to color so I just sat next to her and drew shapes and talked about them while she colored. It's nice to pair up the shapes with songs that kids already know. Of course the "star" is the first shape my kids learn because it can be paired with "Twinkle Twinkle". But when you draw a circle try singing "He's got the whole world in His hands" and make a circle above your head with your arms. Then for the heart you can sing, "Jesus Loves Me" or the Barney Theme song or something that has to do with love. It's amazing how quickly they can catch on to something when paired with a song. If you can't think of a song then think of an object--triangle:pizza slice--rectangle:train--square:box or tv or whatever.

Park Time

2011-10-12T18:28:00.000-07:00

So we had a great time at the park the other night. Our entire Carrollton fan club was there to ensure each kiddo had a great time. Nana flip-flopped between my mom and my cousin Gail and James stuck like glue to his Papa. The little riding vehicles were so cute and James spent most of his time on them. He kept getting on and off and then "instructing" Papa which one he was to ride next.

He "instructed" everyone where they were to sit and when they were to move. I had no idea my child could "take charge" like this. Some might call it bossy--but I choose to believe he's just particular about some things.

Follow the leader!

This park is a pirate ship and so we will have to go back on Halloween because James is going to be a pirate and he will have to have his pic made on the ship.

Very fun night! So glad to have a fan club surrounding my kiddos.

Remi on a Saturday???

2011-10-08T18:21:00.000-07:00

Remi stayed the night with us tonight because his parents went to the Ranger game. The boys, and their girl, thought it was sooo fun to have Remi over on a Saturday. They played and played and played some more. Not that they don't play every day, but it seemed a little more "slumber party" playlike tonight.

This picture is important because it was the first time Nana climbed into the fort by herself. She's been close for a while, but I turned away for a second tonight and by the time I was back she was up and with the boys. This girl is as brave and confident as they come!

This picture shows one of the many things I love about Nana. She is so focused and curious and she loves to explore new things. I gave her my wallet tonight (because I bought a new one at my friend Wendy's garage sale) and she was soooo happy. It's always been something that she was attracted to, but not allowed to play with. But now, it's her's and she spend many an hour tonight learning to open it, carrying it around, putting grass clippings and rocks inside. She's a collector and to her everything is a treasure, even a grass clipping, so she loved having her own wallet to use any way she liked.

And I just had to throw this one in because we are still having successful poopies on the potty. I've honestly never kissed anyone while they were pooping so this was a first for me, but she loves kissing and she was so proud of herself!!

Walking the Dog

2011-10-08T18:13:00.000-07:00

It may sound weird to you, but today was the first time that James has ever walked our dog. She's old and frail so we don't take her out with us when we walk; however, today we had to run an errand after picking her up from the groomer so when we stopped at the park to play she joined us.

James was pumped to get the opportunity to "walk" Gracie. It was really more like Gracie walked James, but he was so proud of holding the leash and he kept telling her where to go, even though she's pretty much deaf. I loved watching them interact.

Poor Nana spent the whole time trying to keep up and just catch Gracie. Nana loves all things that live and breathe and she's always looking for an opportunity to pet Gracie.

Look at how he held the leash on his arm. So cute!

She's lovin' life at this moment.

She finally caught her.

I love this picture because this was how the whole time was spent: Gracie leading the way, James positive that he was in control, and Nana chasing them trying to catch Gracie.

He's absolutely the sweetest guy I know. He's been Gracie's #1 friend all day and keeps asking her about their walk.

Obstacle Course

2011-10-07T10:42:00.001-07:00

Jeremy made the most awesome obstacle course for the kids to do today. They had so much fun!!
First you had to jump over the starting line. . .
Then climb up onto the fireplace. . .

Then down the fireplace. . .

Under the blanket covered chair. . .

emerge. . .

and climb up onto the couch. . .

Run across the couch. . .

and jump into the pillow pit. . .

crash!!!

Then race over and shake the bells to say you were done!

Perfect opportunity to practice following directions, work out those gross motor skills, and use a little bravery and coordination to reach an end goal. Job well done, kids!!!

More Tubs

2011-10-07T10:28:00.001-07:00

Ok so this first picture is not a learning tub, but I just had to share that a certain little someone in our house is now pooping on the potty!! I've been holding off on this because I don't want to start potting training her if she is going to be moving to a new house, but she's coming up to me and telling me that she is pooping so at least for #2 I'm honoring her words and taking her to the potty. It certainly can't hurt even if she does leave for her to be used to being on the potty. I've had this game for a while, but never could remember to buy clothes pins. I was finally at Dollar Tree this week and picked up two packs of 36. This gave me enough for the upper and lowercase letters and numbers to 20. James did it today while I was washing dishes and he thought it was great fun!

I gave him 3 sheets to start with and soon will have him match lowercase pins with uppercase letters. Great fine motor practice, too.

We wrote in our journals yesterday and I had the boys select their favorite animal out of a tub and they were to record facts about the animal. Though most of our facts are very basic right now I hope both boys grow to have a love for writing (and reading) nonfiction.

Remi chose a tiger and he had so many things to say about his tiger. I opened our writing time with asking, "Remi, tell me about your tiger" and he just took off.

Nana was not to be left out of our "cross out" game yesterday. I hadn't printed her off a sheet to do, but after the boys got their turn she was not backing down from trying it out herself. I love that she loves to learn. She is passionate about work and it's sooo darn cute.

All I did was print out a sheet of pumpkins. She only had 8 on her's but the boys had 30. When I said the word, "cross" they were to put one line through the next pumpkin. Once we were all done we counted the pumpkins while touching them with one finger (one to one correspondance). Or course Nana and I did ours together, but the boys did their's on their own.

It was a good time to start showing the boys how to correctly hold a writing tool.

I have all these sheets on my computer so just message me or email me if you want them. Please don't make them yourselves and waste your time. :)

Happy Learning!!

Simple Learnings

2011-10-05T18:35:00.001-07:00

We did a few fun things yesterday and today that I thought I'd share. I actually had this activity out for Nana to do, but it was too hard for her because I was using farm animal manipulatives and expecting her to sort them by color. She kept wanting to sort them by animal (which is great!) and she was getting confused by me saying, "where does the blue sheep go?" So I quickly passed it on to Remi who loved it!

I'll fix it for tomorrow so that it's only one animal, but different colors. Two variables was tooooooo much for my little color loving girl. I will most certainly choose ducks because she is OBSESSED with ducks "quack quacks" as she calls them.

James did a coin sort, which I saw from my friend Wendy's blog. He loved sorting his money and had to take a second look quite a few times when it came to the quarter. Plus, some of the pennies were new and some were old and they looked very different in color so that was a bit confusing, but all in all it was a great tub. Here's Remi combining his favorite thing--art--with what he's learning--letters--. I started with a blank sheet of paper. I wrote letters all over the paper with him watching, I think it's important for our kids to see us write, and two of the letters I knew he didn't know (E and I) and 2 of them I wasn't so sure (S and R) and the rest I knew he knew. Then we practiced pointing to each letter as we said the letter's name and then he got to use dot paint to stamp each letter when I said its name. He did perfectly!

James did the same activity, but with different letters. This is great for letter recognition, letter names and sounds, following simple directions (you can only dot the letter) and motor skill practice (actually dotting a specific letter). Close Up

And I just had to share this picture because my husband has no clue about girl clothes. Sometimes it's kindof funny, but usually it's just sad. I asked him to get Nana dressed for church on Sunday and I gave him her dress and her sweater. This is what he came up with. . . Seriously!!?? He thought the sweater was an under shirt :( Poor guy. He has no clue.

Bounce House Time!

2011-10-05T18:27:00.000-07:00

I have been waiting to be able to set up the bounce house again. Do y'all remember this? My mom found it at a garage sale this summer. It was $100 and worth every penny. The summer was so hot that it wasn't much fun to be inside it, but the Fall is perfect. We set it up on the driveway this time because my mom and Maxey were out planting flowers in their flowerbed and we were able to hang out with them. A little neighbor girl came and stayed the whole afternoon and played with the kids. It was such a perfect day!

My sweet boy loves his bounce house!!!

Weekly Randoms

2011-10-01T19:13:00.001-07:00

We've had a wonderful week here at the Srader house. Lots of outside time, James became totally obsessed with building with blocks this week, and I've been practicing lots of hairstyles on Nana. All those things will be represented in these pics. Enjoy!!

We tried out a new park today and it was a dud, but I took some beautiful pics of the kids. This is the only pic I can show because all the rest of them have my little lovely in them and I can't share her with my online community yet :( Boo!
This was a genius idea I had and it was genius because it was spur of the moment and it entertained for LONG TIME!! James wanted to wash Daddy's car, but unfortunately Daddy was at work and so was his car. So we improvised. I got them sponges and a bucket of water and they went to town. Loads of fun!

The best part of all was when they decided to start squeezing the dirty car sponges into their mouths for water. But that wasn't near as gross as when they started dipping the fly swatters into the bucket of water and licking the water off the fly swatter. Ewww! I'm hoping at least a few probiotics got into their system during all of that.

Our little builder. He is not satisfied unless he can't reach the top while standing on a stool. It must be tall or it isn't done.

We've spent some time practicing coloring in the lines. I never thought to even expect that from the boys until I saw it on someone's blog. I tried it this week and sure enough they can do it. Who knew? I guess we'll have some neater art coming your way in no time.

James' coloring in the lines.

Remi's coloring in the lines. Not bad huh!!?

Soooo very thankful for Fall, the boys, our Nana Bear, time at home, good sleep, and other people's blogs. Hope you had a great week. I'll try and take more pics this week so you can see more stuff.

Smart Little Cookie

2011-09-24T18:12:00.000-07:00

My little Nana Bear is one smart cookie. I started introducing "working with colors" this week and she picked it up in a flash. On Monday we played a simple sorting game with red and blue pom poms. She had no clue--it was all guessing.

On Wednesday we played with the same pom poms and she got about 60% of them in the right bowl.

On Friday we did this. . . I used our flip flop face bowls and the pegs from our Giant Pegboard (yes all Discovery Toys) and gave her two colors at a time. She's a genius!!!

Towards the end of our time I gave her three colors--this is one smart cookie :)

Weekly Randoms

2011-09-23T20:27:00.000-07:00

It's been a fabulous week here at our house. Here's some pics of some fun things we've done. James is very much into building right now. He is great at stacking, which is something he's never really been good at so I'm happy to see him doing well at it now. He loves to build towers at the bottom of the slide and crash into them.
We bought our first tv this week and I got the cute green tv table from my mom's house. We've always just had hand me downs when it comes to tvs but it was finally time to bite the bullet and get a new one. Thankfully tvs are pretty cheap now.

We had dinner at the Davis' and Kyle sang sweet songs to the girls and played his guitar. James loves guitars so I was so happy for him to get to see Kyle play.

I'm all about making messes and doing messy things with kids, but for some reason I really don't like chalk. I never suggest that the kids do chalk, but I was feeling nice on this day and busted it out. Then afterwards we just played in the water and that was the perfect way to wash off the dust that gets all over everything.

We released James' turtle at the pond this week and purchased fish. I wanted to let him go before I forced to keep him through the winter. He'll have plenty of time to get established and fattened up for hibernating this winter.

I know I swore that Nana would wear diapers until she was 6 because I did not ever want to potty train a child again, but she's getting ready so here we go. She's been sitting on the potty and "trying" a little bit lately. She always tells me when she is pooping and sometimes we she pees so it's time.

That's a load of groceries! We've been doing lots of riding lately. Love our bikes and the cool weather.

Such a great week and hope we have many more with the Nana Bear. We'll hear some more news about her and her future with us on Wed. Please pray. We love this little girl soooooo much!!

Hiking Adventures

2011-09-23T20:16:00.001-07:00

We took a nice hike through the park the other day. It started off with a nice pee in the bushes. Both boys love to pee outside and I have to say, it is easy.
This park that we love has an amazing bridge. What kid doesn't like to run across a bridge? We've run a million miles on this bridge and it's so fun!

Here they are trying to decide what to explore first.

Having a chat. So cute! Playing Ring-Around-the-Rosie. . . "we all fall down"

Buddies--and this little buddy just moved down the street from us and we're soooooo happy!

More rosie time. This time with Mammy.

Each kid picked a stick and carried it all over the place. Remi looks quite powerful and studly with his big stick.

Then they realized that banging their sticks on the metal created quite a fun sound so here's the "Stick Band" playing a tune.

I have to say that we are certainly going to enjoy the fall. Bring on park mornings!!

Pond: Population 10

2011-09-15T10:33:00.000-07:00

Our pond is becoming populated! Lots of creatures are popping up and even some plants are starting to grow. Here's James showing off his duck ( I know you can't see it, but you can see him!)
We've added ducks and fish. The ducks were just cut out of construction paper and I let the kids put them together (with a little guidance so that the feet weren't on their heads). The fish were painted by their feet. I just painted the toes a different color and added a thumb print fin at the top.

Close up

We made cattails for the pond and they were messy but fun. I had my kids do them outside on the patio and then we just washed our hands with the hose. They each got one toilet paper roll and 1/2 a papertowel roll. It made one big and one little cattail. They rolled it in glue and then rolled it in sand. I cut out the leaves.

**hint: if you ever need pencil boxes like this go to the thrift store. I have gotten like 25 from there and I usually get a bag of about 6-10 for $1.50-$2.50. They come in handy for all kinds of things, but mostly for storing little games and stamp sets.

Our cattails

This is how our pond looks this week.

Weekly Randoms

2011-09-15T10:12:00.000-07:00

It's been another week and Fall is coming! We've certainly used the cool weather to our advantage. The parks are now a daily routine at our house and we live in the backyard. It's sooooo nice.

Here's James at a park near us. He loved going all the way to the top of the big kid playground and looking over the rock wall to wave at us. Can you see his little head poking out?
He has also become our little water boy. He loves to water all the plants and trees and if you let him the people, too.

I just had to post this picture of Nana in her jeans because she's so darn cute! I had never seen her walking around in pants and it's such a different look. She has short legs, but in jeans she looked a little longer. I cooed and gooed over her all day because she is the cutest thing I've ever seen!

We went to Arbor Hills Park over the weekend and there was a fire truck there. Our kids have never seen a fire truck up close so this was a treat for them.

Don't be jealous ladies, but if you can't tell by the picture my husband folded my washcloth all pretty on top of my towel. Yes, he's a dork, but I thought it was really sweet.

Haircut time!

Weekly Learnings

2011-09-08T19:42:00.000-07:00

There's a lot going on here lately and our Fall has started off with a splash! Literally, we have started our pond/camping unit and are using our time outside wisely. The weather has just been too perfect and so what better way to learn then by doing experiments outside.

My kids love rocks. One of our flowerbeds has little pebbles on top of the soil and they are always playing in the rocks. On this particular day we did some rock sorting, rock senses stuff like shaking handfuls next to our ears, dropping them on the ground and listening, throwing them on the wall and listening vs. throwing them in the grass, etc. You get the idea. It was fun!
Here's Nana banging two together to hear the sound.

Here they are throwing them in the grass.

The best sound came from the wheelbarrow. One accidentally landed in there and made a fabulous clinking sound and after that we had to put EVERY rock in the wheelbarrow.

The first craft we made for our pond was a frog. Nana has never seen a real frog and James probably doesn't remember the real frog he has seen, but I have a fabulous book about frogs called, "Watch Me Grow: Frog" and it has shown us all we need to know about frogs. Here's the supplies you need to make a frog.

I put up our pond yesterday and was so happy to add these little guys this afternoon. The kids love having their art displayed and in no time our pond will be heavily populated!

Cute!

I've been trying to do more purposeful strength/coordination building with the kids and this one was pretty fun. I put a small ball on one end of the tunnel and a cup at the other end--both the cup and the ball were just out of reach so they had to get out each time to complete their turn. They took turns taking the ball to the cup.

We did our journals outside today and I actually wrote in mine before they did. I took the easel (my journal) outside and we sat under our big trees and talked about the parts of our tree and about how the leaves will start changing colors as the weather gets cooler. My kids will not get art skills from me so don't judge my tree. These are toddlers and I don't have time to make beautiful drawings while they are watching.

Each kid started their "Tree Journal" today. I just printed out a small booklet off WORD for the months Sept, Nov, and Jan. We will watch our tree change and record it in our journals. Today the tree was green, obviously, but they will get to see first hand how it changes. I hung my journal up on the back porch to remind me to talk about our tree.

This was James' journal. He was in love with the trunk of the tree and I love how he drew the trunk to fill the whole page. Then he took one stroke of green for the leaves. These kids drawings just make me smile. I love love love watching kids think on paper. He spend the rest of the afternoon drawing "tall trunks" on the easel in every color that we own.

This is Nana's tree. I gave her the colors to use and she did the drawing. I can't wait for her to start joining in on some of our journaling. She actually carried a leaf around most of the afternoon so I do think she kinda understood what we were talking about.

This was Remi's. His was totally opposite from James' and I love it! He drew the trunk super tiny and then spent lots of time making leaves at the top. You can't see them, but he put little dots of brown in the green and I think he was making branches. His actually does resemble a tree. He's the artest of the group for sure!

Happy Learning!!!

ABC Beanbags

2011-09-04T06:30:00.000-07:00

We love our new bean bags from Oriental Trading. They all have a capital and lowercase letter on them and are good quality. The kids have loved sorting them, playing relays with them, biting them, throwing them and filling their grocery buggies with them all week. Always fun to get a new toy.

Weekly Randoms

2011-09-03T18:36:00.001-07:00

Oh it has been a fabulous week. Remi is back from traveling so my two have their playmate back, Jeremy has had a great work schedule this week and we've been able to play outside some. What more could a girl ask for?

Here's how we went through Wal-Mart today. The only thing that would make this picture absolutely perfect would be if James had on his red socks. He insists on wearing red socks when we go out and it's so funny!
Playing with Daddy's childhood car set. This kept them entertained for a LONG time. I love rotating toys because it's always like Christmas morning when you go get something out of the closet. NEVER NEVER NEVER throw a toy away (unless it's broken), they will love it again if you just put it away for a while.

Water time! Yay for better weather this week.

Here's the kids looking up into the attic. We got a new roof and have heard all the banging we want to hear for a long time, but it's beautiful and the process is over. Praise the Lord!!

This cracks me up because we keep all the push cars by the front door, but usually over in the corner. The other day I asked James to go park all the cars by the door and this is what I found. A traffic jam!

The cowgirl getting her purse stuffed and ready to go.

We have part warrior, part cowboy, part ballerina. This kid LOVES playing dress up. The dress up bin has to be the best thing in our playroom. It's so much fun!

Enjoying a picnic outside. Notice my completely dead flowers in the background. It's so sad, but I quit trying to keep them alive about 2 weeks ago. I felt like I was making them suffer by giving them water every day and continuing their agony. I'll replant in a few weeks and no one will ever know. Well, except ya'll but that's ok.

You can always count on the begging dog to by close by when we are having a picnic. She's always hopeful that the little animal loving girl will slip her some bites.

This picture cracks me up. This horrible looking monster slide at the mall is about to gobble up my sweet Nana Girl. Who puts stuff like this in a children's play area? Seriously?!

Quack Quacks!!!

2011-09-03T18:18:00.001-07:00

We've recently become aware that Nana is obsessed with ducks (quack quacks). She can find them in any store, any book, and farm themed whatever and she quacks with her loudest voice until you acknowledge that you too see the quack quack.

So this weekend we knew that we had to take her to feed the ducks. After raising ducks this spring I am totally against giving ducks bread; however, we forgot our thawed peas at home so we ended up having to give them cheerios. It's a little better than white bread, but still not good for ducks.

The kids had the best time. The geese came right up to us and were super friendly, until Nana tried to grab one and then he hissed and hissed until I yelled at him. Jeremy was a little amused that I yelled at a goose, but I didn't know what else to do.

Ya'll know I'm obsessed with shadow pictures and tried hard this night to take a new one. This picture pretty much sums up how interested James was in posing for a shadow picture.

Not quite, kid.

This one will do. I love Nana's tiny little head up top. So glad she can be a part of our shadow family. Plus, this is one family photo I can show the world because you can't see her face! Oh how I long to put her adorable pics all over this blog!!

"Itsy Bitsy Spider"

2011-09-02T11:03:00.001-07:00

Here's James Reading, "The Itsy Bitsy Spider".

"Fortunately"

2011-09-02T11:00:00.000-07:00

I've told y'all about the book, "Fortunately" before but here's the clan reading it last night before bed. They love to do the thumbs down spit every time it's an unfortunate part in the book. Great book. Also there is one like it called, "That's Good. That's Bad". Both are a must have!!!

What You See, Nana? What You See?

2011-09-02T10:57:00.000-07:00

James loves to teach Nana. He is constantly pointing things out to her, reading to her, or instructing her on how to "behave". I caught them in her room the other day and secretly videoed their "moment". Love these two!!!

Ring Around the Rosie

2011-09-02T10:56:00.000-07:00

Are they not the cutest two humans? Jeremy taught them this yesterday and they have done it none stop.

What? We Can Play Outside?!

2011-08-26T18:59:00.001-07:00

So I just had to begin this post with this picture because it's so adorable. We got home from the store one day and James needed to potty, but he wanted to go in the grass. So glad I saw this! I'm so happy that we've been able to play in the backyard this week. Although two days were taken by roofers, whoo hoo we have a new roof, we've certainly enjoyed having some outside time. The boys acted like they had never seen the fort before. I have a feeling the fort will be put to good use this fall.

I got the greatest picture of the three of them on the tire swing. I can't show it to you because Nana's face is in it, but trust me it's precious! I will be having it blown up on a canvas for the playroom. Yay!!!

Speaking of Nana, we got good news about her this week and are hopeful once again. The rollercoaster continues, but we're ready to ride it until the end.

Mmmm, Ice Cream

2011-08-26T18:56:00.001-07:00

Journals

2011-08-23T19:27:00.001-07:00

We are still really enjoying our journals and the boys get very excited when it's time to write in them. I'm sure it's mainly because they can use markers, but I also have them share their journals with each other and with people that come over (my mom or Remi's parents) so they know that it's a big deal.

Both boys have recently had fun outtings and so I wanted them both to write about their adventures. James went to Amarillo so I was curious as to what he would want to write about his trip and Remi went to a rodeo and so I wanted him to be able to tell about what he saw.

This first picture is Remi's account of the rodeo. I love, love, love how each different thing in the picture is a different color and in it's own place. This is such a great milestone for him and it shows development. No longer are things just scribbled all over the page, in one color, and in the center. He is using the full page and is able to have many details about his story. He first drew the cowboys, then the horse, then he drew him, his mom, and his dad. I only label and write down what the kids say so I was tickled when Remi drew his mom and called her "pretty Mommy". He told me a little about the cowboys and that they say, "Yee-Haw!" Soooo cute!

James chose to write about jumping on the trampoline at Mimi and Randad's house. His picture looks a little messy, but I love his placement of his objects, too. First he drew Mimi and Randad's house in yellow. It fills almost the whole page, (which is funny because when it came time to writing his story he said, "Mimi and Randad's house is big"). Then he drew a big blue trampoline in the middle of the page and then three orange people: him, Abbi, and Nana. The green color is his name. He no longer has been doing the five marks for each letter.

I love that the characters and the setting are present in both boys stories. I can't wait for them to start adding some details. However, Remi's hat on the cowboy and the quote "Yee-Haw" made me smile. Oh these little writers.

If you are stuck on what to have your child write about in their journals always remember to bust it out after something fun or eventful has happened. Also, this is guided not independent. I sit next to them and ask questions and write down everything they say. If I let them do this alone I would never know what all these colors meant. It would look like scribble scrabble. But sitting with them and talking with them I know that this is a story, a memory, a real moment in their little lives.

Happy learning!!!

Dress Up

2011-08-23T19:08:00.001-07:00

Dress up is a really big deal at our house. Everyone loves to dress up and some love it more than others :)

James loves wearing ALL the dress up clothes we have. He loves to be the pirate and have sword fights, he loves to be the fireman and put out fires with the drum stick. He loves to be the cowboy and ride his horse and wear his cowboy hat. He loves to be the knight and wear his armor and carry his sword. He also loves to be the butterfly fairy. It cracks me up! He has no idea what a fairy is or what fairies do so he just walks around in this little tutu that is basically too small for him and begs the other kids to dress up like fairies with him.
Here they are digging around for more costumes to put on. Oh he will hate this picture one day, but for now I'm loving this stage of innocence and bliss.

I'm always made to dress up as well and for some reason I am always a fireman. It beats explaining to him why I can't fit in to the tutu!

I think I'll definitely be picking out his Halloween costume this year. I better not let him think he has a choice.

McDonalds: Food, Folks, and Never Eating That Again!

2011-08-20T19:43:00.000-07:00

Call me crazy. Call me a gross. Call me unhealthy. Call me whatever you want, but you can no longer call me a McDonalds eater. I have never, ever, ever liked McDonalds food, but within the past 6 months I have started eating their breakfast sausage McMuffins.

I love that they have $1 drinks and I always stop by for a Dr. Pepper. James loves sausage so we started getting him a "biscuit" as he calls them, if we happened to stop in the morning time. He loves them and so does Nana. Jeremy and I even started loving them. For a while, Jeremy was eating two at a time.

Well recently we stopped there to let the kids play and eat and Jeremy noticed on the food wrapper they have the nutrition information for whatever you are eating. Let me just tell you that with the knowledge I have now about these biscuits it would be nearly child abuse to feed these things to my children ever again. I feel like my heart is going to stop beating at any minute just knowing that I ate these things. Listen to these facts:
This is for 1 sausage mcmuffin--450 calories, 51% of your daily allotment of saturated fat, 95% of your daily allotment of cholesterol, and 38% of your daily allotment of sodium.

No more, people!!! No more!!! I don't know what the heck is in those things, but when I see those percentages I start to get chest pains.

***Be aware of what you are eating. I'm ashamed that we have been eating these for the last 6 months and I hope we can undue the damage that we've done to ourselves and our kids.

Pocket Chart Poems

2011-08-20T12:04:00.000-07:00

We are still loving our new pocket chart. Did you ever go get one from Target? $1
Today I wrote out the poem, "Jack and Jill". This is a poem the boys have memorized so I thought we could "read" it together, possibly mix up the strips and put them back in order (I'm going to add pics to help with that), and practice some letter recognition. Remi loved looking through each word and pointing out letters that he knows. I was amazed at how quickly he could look through the words and spot letters. He's a genius!!

I also started working on my lesson plans for next week. I've struggled for months with how to organize all the things I want to do and all the things I think they kids can do. So I've decided that I'm just going to start making lists and then when I sit down to do my lesson plans each week I can use the lists to help me fill in activities. I made lists for: whole group math, science, reading, physical ed, and writing (whole group involves everyone), and then individual lists for each kid. I'm thinking this is going to help me a lot. Now when I see things on other people's blogs, or when I realize there is something new I want the kids to learn I can just add it to my list and it will get done--eventually. :)

Not Ready To Work on This :(

2011-08-19T18:58:00.000-07:00

These are pictures of Nana's Life Book. When a child is placed in your home for foster care you begin working on them a Life Book. You start filling in the gaps of information that they may or may not have about themselves and start documenting all that you do with them or learn about them so that if they leave your home they will have this keepsake.

I love working on Nana's Life Book. I've done pretty well with keeping up with it and adding art work, pictures, letters, facts I learn about her, etc. But in the past few months I've kindof slipped in to feeling like "Momma" when I work on her Life Book and not "Foster Momma"

Earlier this week we found out that most likely Nana Bear will be leaving our house in January. She has some family that is willing to adopt her and they have begun that process. I'm sooooo very thankful that they are not taking her now, but I'm so very sad that she will not be with me forever.

Even though I know that this is the way it works, it's still very sad. It's sadness that I am more than willing to put me and my family through, but it's still sad. Hence the reason I'm not thrilled to work on her Life Book right now. Although I want her to have every memory I can give her, it makes me sad that I will not get to flip through this book with her when she's older and tell her all about "her story". It's hard to know what to say in her book because she may not know me when she reads it. I pray that her future family will share her story with her and share this book with her and I pray that she will see through this book that she was loved by many people and that for one year she made our life more joyful and more full.

Being a foster mom is hard; living life as a foster child is harder. Pray for our Nana Bear!

David and Goliath

2011-08-19T10:08:00.000-07:00

David and Goliath "Only a boy named David. Only a little sling. Only a boy named David, but he could pray and sing"

"Only a boy named David. Only a rippling brook. Only a boy named David, but 5 little stones he took."

"And one little stone went into the sling and the sling went round and round. Oh, one little stone went into the sling and the sling went round and round. And round and round and round and round and round and round and round."

"And one little stone went up in the air."

"And the giant came tumbling down!"

Amarillo Time

2011-08-18T18:22:00.001-07:00

We're so thankful for the Amarillo time we had last week. We were in need a visit and had been missing our family. The kids had a great time being spoiled by everyone and best of all we got to see Jeremy's brother, Jared, get married. I cried through the whole wedding, but they were tears of joy. I have become a complete emotional softy since I have had kids.

Here's James with my dad, Gdad. He has this restaurant that he loves to eat at and we met him there twice. It's so good!!! It's inside a grocery store, but it's delicious.
Nana got pampered by her Aunt Abbi and is still sporting her pink toenails. She certainly looked her best at the wedding.

Cutest toes I've ever seen. And once the paint dried you could tell she knew she was cute. She is everything girly!!!

Abbi is the queen of kids. Both kids adored her the whole time we were there. I don't think I've ever met a 16 that is so responsible, helpful, and mature. Love this girl!

James' Uncle Jesse is a pro at stacking cups. I had no idea all the cups that are available for stacking games, but there's a lot. Jesse is so good at it and spends hours perfecting his techniques. At this particular moment, James was trying to "help" Jesse with the large stacking cups and it just turned into a play fest.

James loves that his grandparents have a trampoline. It makes me a nervous wreck the whole time, but he hasn't fallen yet. Praise the LORD!!! And Randad is always looking for an opportunity to tickle, touch, kiss, hug, or be with James.

He got him!

We took both kids a riding toy and they loved riding all over the place.

Fish Eyes

2011-08-18T18:10:00.000-07:00

Have you heard of the book "Fish Eyes"? It's such a cute counting book and there are so many things to get out of it each time you read it. Not to mention the pictures are pretty cute. Well, we've been reading that book a lot lately so I decided to have the kiddos make their own fish for our ocean.
All I did was cute out rectangles (for stripes) and circles (for spots) and then I let them decorate their fish however they wanted. I love the colors that they chose and I love how different they all look.

Pretty cute addition to our growing sea.

Here's a sample of the inside of the book. Aren't the pictures cute? Totally something that kids can create to resemble the illustrator's work.

Weekly Randoms

2011-08-05T17:55:00.001-07:00

The first thing I wanted to share on this post today was my new steamer. If you have an ALDI near you and you don't own a steamer then get in your car and go get one. This one cost $20 and it can do it all. I have already used it twice and we loved it!!!
The next thing I want to talk about is fruit and veggie sales. I've been seeing some pretty amazing deals on fruits and veggies here lately and already know that some of the seasonal stuff is about to gone, or atleast prices are about to go way up. Therefore, I have begun my winter prep. When I find bargains on fresh produce, and it's produce that I use in recipes, I get it right then and then bring it home and wash it and freeze it.

This week I found some beautiful strawberries at Aldi and bought 5lbs to freeze. We use these in fruit smooties all the time and buying frozen ones are more expensive then the .99 a pound I paid. I was sick of cutting strawberries by the end of the 5lbs, but it was worth it.

I also use diced tomatoes in EVERYTHING, including smoothies, so I stocked up on a couple of packages of these, too. Firm and delicious!

If you have not checked out Target's Dollar Spot lately you better go now. There are so many great bargains right now for back to school and I almost missed these great pocket charts, but my observant friend, Wendy, gave me the heads-up. These are small, colorful, and perfect for little learners. I bought 5 of them and we have already implemented them in to our daily learning.

Below is an activity I did with James this week. He had to match the capital letters with their lower case letters and then he matched everyone's names. I hung this pocket chart real low where they can all reach it and it's perfect. There were a few days of peeling letters out of Nana's mouth, but she eventually learned how to play with it and how to not eat the pieces in it. I hung it on our paneling with velcro strips.

This day was a fun hair day for Nana because all her hair was able to reach into pigtails. Now, I'm not sure African Americans call them pigtails, in fact I'm pretty sure they call them puffs, but whatever you call them doesn't change the fact that they are too cute! I can't believe her hair is already getting so long. I hope to have many years of learning how to braid and twist her curls.

And lastly I'll leave you with my two sweets sharing a tackle on the floor. Nana always pats James' head when he tackles her. If she doesn't like it then it's more of a pounding, but if she's in the mood to be tackled then she softly pats and rubs his hair. Love these two.

Please pray for us the afternoon of the 15th. Nana's parents have run out of time to complete their services so they are looking for family members who will take her. Obviously we are smitten and want to call her our own, but we know she belongs ultimately to the Lord. Pray for the decision makers who have the power, and pray for us because our hearts are heavy while we wait to see the outcome of our future with her. She's the best!

Potty Faces

2011-08-05T17:45:00.001-07:00

When James is on the potty. . .

He makes some pretty extreme faces . . .
Not sure why . . .

But I love that he's always . . .

entertaining me.

The conversation below is potty talk. If you don't like potty talk then stop here:

These pictures reminded me of a conversation I had with my Life Group the other week about "open door policy". It turns out that Jeremy and I aren't like the rest of our group. We have an "open door" policy at our house. That means that whatever you need to "do", whenever you need to do it, anyone is welcome to come along.

Now I'm just being honest when I say these things because apparently most people are not this way, but we are and we always have been. Jeremy and I got married when I was 18. There's a good chance (Lord willing) that we might be married for 60-70 years. I refuse to spend the next 60-70 years running to the closet and closing the door every time I need to toot. I also find it highly annoying for a good conversation to have to be put on hold so that someone can go "#2". Therefore, we do all things together. It's gross, but it's how it is.

Are we weird? Or are there others out there that have an "open door" policy at their house. The men in our Life Group refuse to believe their wives even go "#2". Trust me--we do.

Weekly Randoms

2011-07-31T17:48:00.000-07:00

What a hot and fun week we have had. Here are a few randoms from this week:
Here's James finishing off his meal at Chic-Fil-A with a little lick of the ketchup packet. Yummy!
On Thursday our electricity went out for 4 1/2 hours and we were hot! I kept thinking it was about to come back on because the crew was in the alley working, but it took forever. Praise the Lord for electricity and an air conditioner. Even the dog was hot. I had everyone outside playing in the water until it was too dark to see. Gracie kept drinking out of the kids pool. Poor doggy!

Here's Nana driving Jeremy at the mall play area. Those two are crazy together. Perfectly matched!!

Here's Remi working on his letters. I just wrote some letters in front of him on the easel and then I would call out a letter and he had to color it. Worked pretty well. Remi knows a lot more letters than he can name so coloring them was easier for him than telling me their name. This is a good way to assess what your kid knows quickly and easily.

Silly boy swinging :)

I have loved our new job chart for James (that is until Nana ate it). We started last week giving James nickels for his jobs. He loves putting money in his money jar and then he likes to take it to the bank and "buy a sucker". So Jeremy and I opened him up an account and now any time Jeremy has to go to the bank James goes and gets some of his money and puts it into his account, I mean buys a sucker.

His three jobs are: feed his turtle, brush his teeth, and pick up the dog bowl to be washed and refilled. Simple jobs, but fun for him. After taking Dave Ramsey I am 100% convinced that kids need payment for jobs that they do, but that they also need jobs that are just part of being a member of the family. James also has to refill the toilet paper, help with trash and recycling, pick up toys, and clean his potty, but payment is not given for these jobs. I could do a whole nother blog about his jobs and payment, but for now I'll just leave you with the chart. We like it. It works well (or worked well. I have to make more job squares because Nana ate his) and it's easy to use. The moment he finishes a job he gets his nickel.

Hope you had a great week. Don't forget about DT's amazing summer sale. Message me if you need the flyer. It's full of great stuff!!!

Math Talk

2011-07-29T18:41:00.000-07:00

I opened up a new topic for discussion this week and it's been fun to talk about it with the boys. Math. We've been doing a little bit of math and we've been calling it math and I like it. The first day I just did some drawings of simple addition. We chose two balls from the bin and I drew them and we added them and so forth. This has been nice because it's given us some new words to say while we are playing: plus, equals, more, less, add, take away, together, etc. I've been trying to do a little mini-lesson each day with them and it's amazing the new things kids can take on in just a matter of minutes.

This picture shows Nana and James counting themselves on the easel. They're so cute!
The journals we have been doing have lit a fire under James and he now wants to see everything written. I know his brain loves letters and words, but I didn't know how much he loved them until now. All throughout the day he will ask me write words for him. He'll search all over the house and say, "Mommy write. . . Barney". So there is always a list of words on the easel because he keeps wanting to see more and more. I'm amazed at all the words he can already read. He's a machine!!!!

Here he is working on his "lines". He always wants me to draw stars for him on the easel and then he connects them with a line. He's going to love connect the dots someday. Anyway we've gone through so much paper this week of him drawing "lines". And he'll say, "I'm working, Momma. I'm working on lines".

Just recently he has started taking pictures of his work when he likes it. Here he is with his Cinderella cell phone taking a picture of his "lines".

It's been a fun week of learning. We've added a little bit to our ocean, which I'll post later, but mostly the boys have been coloring at the easel and playing in James' new bed. They crack me up!!!

ANOTHER new bed

2011-07-25T10:17:00.001-07:00

Well, Mr. James is moving on up in the world of beds again. This kid is going to think you get a new bed every two weeks. However, this time we had to move fast because a foster family that we know needed a crib and so we did musical beds this weekend at our house. James' bed got torn down and moved into Nana's room (lovely that it wouldn't fit out the door so you gotta take it apart and put it back together). Nana's bed got taken down and loaded into a pick-up truck this morning and James' new bed has been being built the past two days (it's IKEA and it will be sturdy forever, but it was a beast to put together).

Anyway, so James is super thrilled to have another new bed and each time he goes into his room he says, "look at me bed! look at me bed!" Anyway, I have wanted this bed since before James was born and it was going to be his Christmas present this year, but I guess Christmas came early.
I love that it's a bunk bed, but that the bottom bed is on the ground. This makes it not very tall and perfect for a growing boy. The top will be just for play right now because he can't do the straight up and down ladder by himself.

We took him to Target and let him pick out sheets for his new bed. He picked these lined sheets with cars and trucks on them. They're so cute! He keeps pointing out the motorcycle on the sheets and says, "motorcycle like Randad".

The top has a cute tent that you can buy to go over it. I love the tent and it makes the top even safer and more fun!

Once again, a happy boy in his new bed. Now that we have more bed space we should add another kid to our home--just kidding. The inn is full!

My Dear Friend

2011-07-24T11:01:00.001-07:00

This is a picture of my dear friend Danna and her family. I used to teach with Danna in Arlington and got to watch her become a mommy the year before I did. She and her husbanad, Aaron, are the best of friends and loved nothing more than raising Charis and being together.

Well Saturday morning, when the rest of the world was waking up to start their weekend, Danna woke up to find that Aaron had died. I don't know any details, but the ones I do know are enough to send my heart into complete brokeness. He's gone from this earth and she is now facing life without him. This was so unexpected and so shocking that I can't imagine what she is feeling or thinking at this time. And Charis--sweet little 3 year old Charis, what about her? I'm so sad. So sad for everyone in this sweet family.

Please pray for them. Please pray specifically for Danna and Charis peace and comfort. She's a stay at home mom and Aaron was so faithful to support her and Charis spending their days together. I'm not sure what she is going to do, but I know life is about to radically change.

If you are willing to give financially to Danna and Charis would you please let me know. I would love to be able to help her out in at least this way if you can. Death comes and real life doesn't stop so please give if you are willing.

Hug your husbands and your families today. You just never know. :(

James "Reading"

2011-07-22T19:49:00.001-07:00

This is the book James reads to everyone. He loves that he can point to each word and "read" it. I think he is just super and I love the whisper voice at the beginning. He's been doing that a lot lately when he gets shy and it's so funny. You can't really hear it well and he went really fast, but this video is mainly for my memory because I love that he loves to read.

We Have a Walker

2011-07-22T19:46:00.000-07:00

This is why I haven't taken many pictures this week because I've been carrying around the video camera waiting to catch Nana taking her first steps!

Psalm 145 Memory Verse

2011-07-22T19:10:00.000-07:00

Weekly Randoms

2011-07-22T18:53:00.001-07:00

I have very random pictures this week and I didn't take many pictures this week because I took a lot of video. I'll post later what big things have been going on that kept me behind the camera all week.

This first picture is James praying at snack time one day. What was so great about this moment is that it was his first time to say a prayer alone. We always pray with him, but on this day I was talking to Nana and getting their snack started and James just started praying. He said, "Lord thank you for my whales (knock off Goldfish crackers), my water and for Daddy and Nana. Amen".

I couldn't think of what to do in the moment so I just took his picture. It was too cute. Ever since then he has wanted to say his own prayers. Sweet kid.
I found this on the clearance rack at Hobby Lobby. I had to get it since we are learning more about Noah with our ocean theme. I liked that it had two of every animal and that they were stickers. We have also started a new memory verse and the boys pretty much already have it learned. I only say the chapter with them right now so this one is Psalm 118 Give thanks to the Lord for He is good. His love lasts forever." I posted a video of James saying his last memory verse on FB. I'll try to put it on the blog if you haven't seen it. It's sooooo sweet. That verse took him about a month to learn.

This is the latest journal that he did. I love it because it's about his Doggy that he sleeps with and would carry everywhere with him if we would let him, but we don't let it leave the bed :)

Anyway, I wrote Doggy's name at the top and then let him draw him. He drew his blue body parts first, then added two black eyes and black toes and then his red collar. Then when he was done drawing I asked him, "what do you like about Doggy?" and he said, "I like his name and I like my name, too". Then I asked him, "What do you do with Doggy?" and I thought he would say sleep with him, but he said, "I hold his ear" and it's true he holds one of Doggy's ears with one hand and then sucks his thumb on the other hand. (Also, I know that I spelled it Doggie's name on the paper, but I went back and fixed that. Don't know what I was thinking).

I don't have a real camera so I take all my pics on my phone and it's hard to see his drawing, but you get the point.

I wanted to share this tip that works for me with keeping arts and crafts ideas. I get the Oriental Trading magazine all the time and there are always cute ideas for things to make in there, but you can totally make them on your own. So I cut out all the pics I like and glue them on themed construction paper.

Here's what I cut out today.

Then I sort them by theme (this is bug/garden theme) and glue them on the paper. Then this paper goes in my file and I can make them if I want to or I at least have the idea for when I do this theme again. Hope that helps you keep up with your ideas.

More Journaling and Our New Scissors

2011-07-18T11:31:00.001-07:00

So following other mommy blogs is so good for me because it gives me ideas of things James can do that I didn't know that he could do. Scissors is one of those things. I had no idea that 2 year olds could manipulate scissors. It makes sense because he can work tongs and stuff, but it had never crossed my mind to get him a pair of scissors.

Well now that school supplies are on sale I went and stocked up on some stuff and these little safety scissors were on sale, too. I got him a pair and he's great at it! I'm so glad to know that he can now cut stuff out. We practiced the other night just on some scrap paper and it's work for him, but he can do it. I like these scissors (they say for 3 and up) because they only open a little bit and the blade at the tip is protected by plastic. He wanted to go and cut my hair and Nana's hair and Gracie's hair, but we talked about only using "these" scissors on paper. Let's hope I never have to do the "My kid cut his own hair" blog entry.
He did another journal entry last night. It was so cute. We had been playing with his plastic ocean animals and I asked him if he wanted to journal about the octopus. Of course he was excited because that meant he got to use his "new markers" again. So we sat down at the table and talked about the features of the octopus. We agreed that the octopus "looks weird" and then he drew it. I love that he picked the color red to draw him with. Also near the bottom of the page you can see a group of little red lines which he was drawing the 8 legs. Then he signed his cute signature in brown at the end. Sooo cute! He wanted to write that the octopus was pink and had 8 legs. We also went back and "read" his last journal entry about the markers. So important with journaling that you get them to "read" their own stories. Anyway, if you haven't got your kid a journal GET ONE!!!

Here's Nana coloring while we journaled. She loves to color and still uses both hands when doing so even though I'm pretty sure she will be right handed. She has never left a coloring session without having crayon shavings in her teeth. We're working on that.

This is a little computer that I got at our Lifegroup's garage sale. It's fabulous. It has about 40 games that you can play and James is able to actually play about 5 of them so it will be a computer that will grow with him for a long time. I love the mouse that came with it. I believe it's VTech, but I'm not sure.

Hope you are enjoying the start to your week. Can't wait to play with the sand I bought this weekend!!!

Journaling

2011-07-16T15:41:00.001-07:00

I love the idea of starting journaling early. It's the perfect way to introduce meaningful writing to your child. Now that school supplies are going on sale, I stocked up at Walmart with some essentials. I got Remi and James a journal (20 cents) and I can't wait to watch their writing change over the course of this next year.

When I taught school each kid had a "draft book" that they wrote their stories in all year long. It's was fabulous to look at it along the way and watch their learning unfold in their stories. I intend on having the boys write at least twice a week, but if opportunity knocks then we will do it more. James was so excited about his journal and new markers when we were at Walmart. I kept telling him he could open them when we got home. So the moment we walked in the door he got started. I let him draw and when he was done I asked him what he drew. He thought about it for a while and said, "I just got new markers!" So that's what I wrote.

Also, he still does his name the same way. You can see some of it at the bottom of the page. He writes one scribble for each letter. I can't wait to see what his name looks like in a year.

We will use this journal through the "school year" and I'll keep you posted on other entries in case you are working on one too. Don't be intimidated by writing. Just let them do the work and you translate the "story".