Week of November 11, 2013

The look on Katie's face in the picture below tells you what kind of week we had....same old stuff.  I think we all suffered from boredom this week.

 

We used one of the last nice days of the year to go on a walk.  Katie enjoyed picking leaves, grass and flowers.  Audrey just enjoyed the ride.

Shelli and Evan came over for monster activities.  The kids made scribble monsters, traced the letter m, made playdough monsters and played outside.

 Katie and Audrey have been enjoying more time spent together.

Katie has been practicing her cutting and is really getting good at cutting along lines.

Audrey is getting in her two bottom teeth and although you can see the tops of them they're still giving her a little bit of trouble as they come in the rest of the way.  We enjoyed some time in the backyard, picking seeds from our morning glories and zinnias to save for next year.

Week of November 4, 2013

 Our week started with some fun in the leaves.  They're really falling off of our big sycamore tree and our yard is covered.  Katie ran back and forth gathering leaves and bringing them back to Audrey.

 Then she got her rake and started raking up the leaves into "a biiiiiiiggggg pile"...

 ...which with a 3-year-olds lack of patience turned into a pile of about four leaves.

I couldn't just let her continue to jump in her pitiful little pile so I grabbed the big rake and made a pile of leaves for Katie to jump in to her heart's content...

 ...which she proceeded to do with much enthusiasm!

 Audrey loved watching big sister jump in the leaves over and over.  Hard to believe that next fall they'll both be jumping in leaf piles.

 We've been having fun with a monster theme this week.  We've enjoyed many activities including tracing, coloring, cutting, gluing and stickers.  Katie has a new interest in cutting and gluing.  I got her a pair of scissors and she has really enjoyed practicing cutting.  She is able to cut along lines with relative ease.

 Hannah has made several visits over the past week and boy does Katie love her cousin!

We made "monster fizz" using colored vinegar and baking soda.  Katie used an eye dropper to drop the vinegar on the baking soda and make it fizz and bubble.

 It didn't take her long to put the eye dropper down and start using her hands instead.  This made for a much bigger reaction which added to her interest and excitement in this activity. 

 I ordered a book called "Monsters Love Colors".  This book has been a huge hit and there are so many activities that we can do that go with the books' theme.  In the book monsters use the primary colors to make secondary colors.  So after several readings Katie, Audrey and I sat down and got coloring.  Katie used the pages as a guide to make squiggles, scribbles and wiggles on her paper using the primary colors.  Then we used googly eyes to make scribble monsters.

 Audrey loved looking at the bright, colorful pages.

 We read stories to the girls every night before bed.  Sometimes Audrey misses out on story time because she's too tired to stay up that late but, on the nights she does stay up she loves it!  The girls and I read books throughout the day too but, there's something special about all of us (including Lillie) reading together at night.

 One of our other activities inspired by "Monsters Love Colors" was using our salad spinner to make spin art.  Katie picked two colors of paint to place on a piece of paper in the salad spinner...

 ....then she got spinning and...

 ...observed the results.  We got some really pretty art out of this activity and Katie had lots of fun spinning.

Week of October 28, 2013: Pumpkins and Halloween

This week we learned all about pumpkins.  It started with us carving our pumpkin.  Katie and I looked at jack-o-lanterns online and Katie picked out which one she wanted her Daddy to carve.

 

Katie and I scooped out the insides of the pumpkin.  Surprisingly Katie thought this was "yucky" and I ended up scooping out most of the pumpkin.  We also saved the seeds and roasted them. 

Audrey watched us scooping and carving. 

While Daddy was carving Katie got kind of bored so she went and got her markers and started decorating the pumpkin in her own way.  Next year we're going to have multiple pumpkins so the girls can decorate their pumpkins while Daddy carves.  Katie worked really hard on making her pumpkin look just right.

 

 

 

 

We went to Evan's house to learn more about pumpkins.  Katie traced the letter P...

...did some ice painting and many other fun pumpkin-related activities.

The girls have started taking baths together and they love it.  Audrey loves being with big sister and Katie loves that someone gives her that much attention.

We went trick-or-treating with Papa, Aunt Vicki and Grandma Sue.  Audrey fell asleep but, Katie seemed to enjoy herself.  We went to an adjoining neighborhood that had lots of other trick-or-treaters so Katie had a lot of fun just watching the other people.

We put faces on a pumpkin using black playdoh.

I asked Katie to show me the same face her pumpkin was making.

Audrey has got to try all sorts of new foods.  So far she has had avocados, sweet potatoes, pears and prunes.  She loves them all.  She never even makes a face when we introduce a new food, she just opens her mouth for more.  She's also becoming just as expressive as Katie.  Her big, toothless grin cracks us up.

Katie has enjoyed playing with some of her toys and crafts from her birthday.  She colored her Little Mermaid poster this week.

 

 

We put her love of magnifying glass to good use this week when we did a pumpkin exploration.  We talked about the color, shape and texture of the pumpkin as Katie explored it with her magnifying glass and cut it open.

Then we planted the seeds and set them by her little tank so she could watch them as they grow.  She's been checking on the seeds every little bit throughout the day waiting for them to sprout.