Week of January 4, 2015

We are really lacking on the photo area in this week's blog.  After being sick for so long between Thanksgiving and Christmas we were sick again this past week.  Just another cold but, this one came with bad coughs for the girls and a sinus infection for me. 

 

We started the week of well with a penguin theme.  The boys came over and the kids had lots of fun learning about penguins and playing together.

The girls are really getting good at helping around the house.  Katie asked if she could fill the ice trays by herself and Audrey helped by bringing her each empty ice tray.

The kids played with a iceberg sensory tub with their penguin figurines.

Then they made Daddy a chocolate cake for his birthday!

Daddy gave Katie a hammer to chip away at the "icebergs".

The girls made penguin footprints in white playdough "snow".

They also had fun stamping.  Most of this week was spent relaxing and feeling crummy.  Daddy's birthday was Thursday and we had a wonderful time together eating pizza and chocolate cake with raspberry sauce.  Tomorrow is a new week and now that we are feeling better we plan on having lots of fun with snowman week!

Week of December 28, 2014

We have had a wonderful start to the new year! 

 

We went on a walk around the neighborhood to visit Mrs. Linda and had an impromptu storytime at her house.

Katie has been working on writing and is so proud of herself.  We are, too!  She's been working on random letters for awhile but, lately we have been writing words for her to practice and she has been coloring a picture as part of her writing practice, too.  This particular day we read a book called "Millions of Cats".  Katie practiced writing her C's, then the word CAT.  Of course, she had to color her cat pink, her favorite color.
Audrey did a great job of coloring next to sister while she did her writing.  This was the first time we had tried writing with the distraction of Audrey.  Usually we wait until naptime but, both girls did very well and Katie was able to concentrate while Audrey looked through the book and colored.

Both the girls are so good to help out with cleaning around the house.  After writing practice and a snack they got some damp towels and cleaned their new table.

Katie wanted to set up a sensory tub during one of Audrey's naps this week so she gathered some sea shells and her Little Mermaid toys for some water play.

 She listened to the sea shells trying to hear the ocean.

Both girls did some water color art this week.  Knox and Brex came over while we were working on our paintings so they joined in also.

Daddy and the girls made a hideout under the kitchen table.  The girls played and read under it all morning.

We are going to learn about penguins this coming week so this weekend we set up a penguin sensory tub.  We poured water and some blue food coloring into baggies to freeze.  Then we added small stones and our penguin figurines.  Both girls had fun with this sensory tub until their little hands got too cold.

Audrey loves using the words hot and cold right now so this was a perfect activity for her.

My favorite people making their silly faces.

I've been waiting to do this sensory tub for months.  Katie loves hot chocolate so we made a hot chocolate sensory tub.  We dyed rice brown and added chocolate extract.  The girls and I made stoves out of boxes.  Then we added cups, pans, spoons and white pom pom "marshmallows".  The chocolate scented rice smelled really good and the girls played off and on with this tub all day. 

Weeks of December 14 and December 21, 2014

There are tons of pictures on this post!  Partly because it's two weeks worth of our activities and partly because it was Christmas and we took tons of pictures.

 

Daddy and his girls rough housing, a nightly occurrence around our house.

A few of the girls friends came over to play.  The kids made gingerbread man ornaments out of gingerbread clay.  It was a much loved activity and I really liked how the clay turned out.  After the kids made and decorated their ornaments they used construction vehicles to play with the clay some more.

The girls have made several Christmas themed crafts throughout the holidays.  This is a 3-D Christmas tree that they decorated with ornament stickers.

The girls set up their playhouse and a clothesline.  They had lots of fun washing their baby doll clothes and hanging them on the clothesline.

Snuggling and watching the fire...we have had many fires lately.

We had our last storytime with sweet Mrs. Linda.  The kids decorated cookies.  Katie ended up eating mores sprinkles and icing than she did decorating her cookies.

Some of our storytime friends.

We took the girls to see Santa Claus at Bass Pro.  Katie was excited to see Santa but, Audrey didn't want anything to do with him.  Daddy ended up holding Audrey and sitting on Santa's lap for a picture.
The girl's favorite thing about Bass Pro is the fish.  They love watching the trout in the little stream. 

Daddy showing Katie how to draw with the charcoal from the fire.

Sitting by the fire, reading.

The girls played for a long time with playdoh one evening and Beau joined them.  He crawled all over the playdoh had lots of fun being a little pest.

 Katie wanted me to take pictures of her practicing her ballet.

Since Daddy was on vacation he made some delicious sourdough French bread.  Katie helped him get the sourdough starter ready.

On Daddy's first day of vacation we went to Grandmother and Grandfather's for Christmas.  The girls wrestling with Grandfather and Katie enjoyed cooking with Grandmother.  They got a washer/dryer that matches their kitchen and Katie grabbed the iron and started ironing away. 

Beau liked looking at Katie's snowglobe.

We visited Papa and Tina's for their Christmas.

 The girls loved these little birds.

 Uncle Benny opening presents with Audrey.

 They had fun helping Daddy put together a racetrack.

 And playing with the racetrack with Papa.

The girl's friends visited again and the kids made reindeer food.

Daddy and Katie kneaded the dough for the sourdough French bread.

We spent the day before Christmas Eve making a gingerbread man house and Christmas cookies.  Audrey loved licking all the candy before she put it on the house.  She even licked the house once or twice when she thought we weren't looking haha!  Katie worked really hard on making the house look just like the picture.

We spent Christmas Eve at Grandma Sue's.  Katie helped me ice the chocolate cake.  We opened presents, ate bbq and visited.

 When we got home both girls were worn out.  Katie hung the stockings and set out cookies and milk for Santa.  Then she begged to go to bed.  Poor Audrey just went straight to bed. 

Christmas morning Katie woke up first.  She had forgotten it was Christmas but, when we told her to go see if Santa came she got really excited.  The one thing she asked for was a pointer.  Santa did not disappoint!

 We woke little Audrey up so she could open gifts, too.

 A pirate spyglass.

 Fishing poles.

 A musical instrument set.

Katie's pointer.

 A new table and chairs.

It's been cold and wet outside so I've been taking care of Jack.  It was pretty nice outside Christmas day so we all went outside to play.  The girls gave Jack some carrots for Christmas.

Then they rode around in the cars Papa and Tina had gotten them for Christmas.

Teaching Audrey the names of the animals on Audrey's new magnets she got from Aunt Vicki.

A few days after Christmas we woke up to snow!  The girls were so excited!

 We went outside to play but, the girls got cold really quickly.  We made a quick snowman and the girls went sledding for a bit before they were ready to go back inside.

We went to Grandma and Grandpa Vaughan's later in the day.  The girls had fun playing with their cousins and opening gifts.