Week of May 20, 2013: Trip to the Zoo

Katie's had fun this week learning about triangles, the color green and the letter D.  I saw this great idea on pinterest and didn't know if it would work but, thought I'd try it.  You can take sheets of foam that you get in the craft section and when they get wet they stick to the sides of the tub.  Worked great!  We cut out triangles of all sizes and Katie was able to play with them in the tub throughout the week.  She made pictures with them, sorted them by size and floated them in the tub.  

 

Don't you love the little cross eyes on Ms. Audrey's sweet face?

Knox and Brex came over for a few playdates this week.  Knox and Katie went through about 10 fruit snack packages in one sitting. 

Ms. Audrey spent the playdate snoozing...

 

...while Katie and Knox played dress-up.

Audrey really listens when we read Katie books before bed.  She turns her head towards whoever is reading and is starting to try to focus on the pictures.  I love this quote, "Children become readers on the laps of their parents".  So true.

 

We focused on the letter D this week.  Katie put these beads on the lines of the letter.  She loved this activity and probably redid it 4 times in one sitting.  She has also started practicing her letter sounds.  While driving the other day she turned to her Daddy and said, "D, D, Daddy".  Such a smart little thing.

Cousin Hannah was able to stop by for a few minutes this week to get some cuddle time with the girls.

 

Lillie is worn out by the end of the day.  

Audrey SMILED for the first time this week!  She's such a relaxed, cuddly little girl.

 

Katie played with her dinosaurs, cookie cutters and play do.  She made dinosaur footprints and used cookie cutters in the shape of a duck, dolphin and dog.  This activity kept her entertained for about an hour and a half.  

 

We spent friday afternoon at Grandma Sue's house.  Aunt Jo and Uncle Gary got Katie a rake and a petunia for her fairy garden.  Katie loved playing in the sandbox with Aunt Jo...

...and making "coffee" for us with her tea set.  The best part was Grandma made fried chicken!  I haven't cooked like I usually do since Audrey's been born so this was a real treat plus there's nothing like Grandma's fried chicken and gravy!

We took a trip to the zoo on Saturday.  I've said it before but I am so thankful to have a zoo pass.  We are able to go to the zoo at the drop of a hat and see as many or as little of the animals as we want.  They had two special activites going on Saturday.  One was a scavenger hunt based on The Lion King broadway show.  We went to the lion, rhinoceros, meerkat and giraffe exhibits to pick up our clues.  At the end of the day we turned our clues in for a prize.  The other activity going on was Rhino Awareness Day.  We got to get up close to the rhinos and even pet them.  They had a tent set up with rhino information and games for the kids to play.  The rhinos were as docile as cattle but, Katie was still a bit too intimidated to touch them.  It was still a really cool experience...who can say they got that close to a rhino?

 

Katie watching the elephants.



 We stopped in this walk through garden they have and went to the fish pond. There was a red-eared slider turtle swimming that came right up to us. Katie got a kick out of watching him.

 

Near the tortoise exhibit is a statue that almost every kid stops at for a ride and a photo.  I have pictures of my brother and I on this same tortoise years ago.

 At the end of the trip we stopped in a shady spot and bought Katie some dippin' dots ice cream.  Audrey was so relaxed during our zoo trip.  She lounged in the stroller and laid on a blanket in the shade.

 

Week of May 13, 2013: Katie is back to "school"

It's our second "normal" week and we are really getting into the swing of things.  Audrey is doing wonderful and Katie is loving being a big sister.  Now that we've got a routine down I decided it was time to get Katie back in the habit of our little lessons that we've been doing since she was about a year.  This time we are doing a letter, number, color and shape a week along with a centralized theme.  This week was F, 3, yellow and square. 

 

The letter F fit perfectly for the activities we've been doing lately...flowers, fairy garden, fish, etc.

 

 Katie's fairy garden

 Katie's gnome garden

 This was a really fun activity for letter recognition, pre-writing skills and fine motor skills.  Katie took little pieces of play do, made circles out of them and placed those circles along the letter. 

  Audrey and Daddy napping.

Katie looking for the frogs that live in our garden.  She followed one around for several minutes one morning saying, "Where are you froggy?  Oh!  There you are!".  Too cute!

We're growing some mint in a barrel next to the vegetable garden and it's now big enough to eat.  Katie likes picking and eating all sorts of food from the garden.

Coloring three fish.

We got Katie a pool for the summer.  The water was freezing cold but that didn't stop Katie or Lillie from jumping in and splashing around.

Sweet little Audrey puts her hand by her mouth a lot.  She always has the cutest expressions when she does this.

At the library on Thursday Katie learned about kites and made kites during craft time.  Well, I made Katie's kite, Katie practiced her cutting skills with her little friend Sydelle.

 

We picked pansies in the front garden.

Practicing making squares with popsicle sticks.

Audrey, Daddy and Lillie taking a nap.

We had two graduation parties this week...my stepsister and our niece.  I only got a chance to take one picture during the parties, this is Katie's cousin Ethan.  Katie loves spending time with her cousins and has lots of fun following Ethan around.  They look a lot alike, don't they?

Audrey will turn four weeks old on Tuesday!  Time is going by way too fast.  The top picture is Audrey and the bottom is Katie at exactly the same age. 

Our last activity for the week was a walk in the field behind our house.  We picked wildflowers and looked for bugs.  It's amazing how much fun we had doing something so simple.  Katie loved all the flowers and ran all over the field shouting, "Look Mommy, look!" at every flower she saw.

Audrey slept through the whole outing.

We found a ladybug.



These were my favorite flowers that we found.

When we got home we put all the flowers we picked into a jar.  Katie loved looking at them while she made her artwork. 

Katie proudly showed off her flower artwork along with all her other art from the week.