4th of July

We had a good 4th of July spent with my family. BBQ, Water Fun and Fireworks....who wouldn't have fun?

We were all decked out in our colors

 Madison's pretty dress (she would not smile)

 My pretty Flag wreath I made out of hundreds of felt cirlces

 The kids masterpiece on canvas. You can almost not tell what hand and foot print goes to each kid. Madison is growing way to fast.

 Some more decor I made for our house for the 4th. Of course I went to pinterest for my ideas. http://pinterest.com/ajenson/red-white-and-blue/

 This is my star table runner. Lots of red, white and blue stars sewn together

My camera started to die after our family shot on the 4th so I have a lot of other pictures I still need to get from other people. Maybe those will make it on her eventually.

Zach's ABC's

Zach has been learning his ABC's. He LOVES it. We go over the letter of the week, by first sounding it out. Then he see/hears what words and things start with that letter. We also trace both the "Big" and "little" letter. He also has to pick out what letter we are learning both is big and little form from a choice of 3 letters to make sure he knows what it looks like. We then eat foods that start with that letter and do crafts with the letter too.

Letter A

We made an alligator out of a "Big" A

 And and apple out of the "little" A

 Also did his footprints to make an apple

 We had fun with an apple and paint doing apple prints

We ate Ant's on a log, along with apples and a couple other A foods

At Disneyland we made sure we went on Alice in Wonderland 



The letter B

We made a Bear

 and a Bee

We made sure we rode on Buzz Lightyear at Disneyland that week too 

 Then we had fun making a bird feeder

Made out of Toilet Paper Rolls, Peanut Butter and Bird Seed

 We hung them in our Tree in the Back Yard which usually has a ton of birds in it

 I guess I hung one too low and our Dog was able to get it.....and destroy it

Luckily we had made two.

When I went to check if any birds had eaten off it, I found instead that is was covered in ANTS. Poor birds didn't go near it then.

We strung up some string to display all of Zach's lovely art work!

We are now on letter F (sorry I haven't taken any pictures since B)

Our little To-Do Board

I saw on How Does She of this girl doing a little board for her son of what they were going to do that day. The board had things on it like brush teeth, bedtime, go potty, etc. I thought that Zach could benefit from a board like that too. Instead I did a Today and Tomorrow board. I didn't want to overwhelm him with too much, but I wanted him to see what was going to happen the next day, so that he could look forward to it and get excited.

Zach LOVES it. He points out different things on the board with a huge grin....like the go to the park tomorrow card. It also helps him do his "chores", like help feed the dogs and clean his room. I started having him make his bed as well and help water the plants. He goes to the board a number of times a day and when he completes a task he takes down that card.

He has different fun cards in there as well, like go to Disneyland, the beach, the park, the zoo, etc. Those are the cards he really likes.

Zachary's To-Do Board For Sunday and Monday

I just used a large magnetic white board I found at Walmart and covered it with cute BOY scrapbook paper. I even covered the round magnets with cute paper too.

Now all we need to do is hang it in HIS room

Link to the original blog where you can download a lot of the cards you see. The other cards I used her template and just copy and pasted my images over them. Like the go to the park card

http://www.howdoesshe.com/how-to-create-a-visual-schedule-for-your-family

Baby Animals

At the Hartvigson Farm there are a lot of baby animals being born.

Fist is this Cute little baby goat. It was so soft and little. The kids didn't really want anything to do with it

 See Madison giving it the eye like "come any closer and I'll scream"

 The only way to get her any closer was to hold it and be in the picture myself.

 (I like how the mama is looking in from the side)

 These baby chicks were so cute and we really wanted to hold them, but that mama hen was VERY protective. You stick you hand in there and she would peck it off.

 The kids favorite of course was the baby kittens

No kittens were harmed in the taking of these photos

The Very Silly Caterpillar

We found a Caterpillar in our yard (which is very rare) and the kids thought it was so silly

At first they didn't want to touch it

 Whenever Madison would to pick it up she feel the little prickles and drop it

 Zach said it was tickling him

 "Um Mom there is something on my head.....please remove it"

 Koda thought it was something to eat and wanted to investigate more

Overall the kids loved it and didn't want me to put it back where we found it

Easter Day

Easter Morning started out with fun Easter Baskets

 Zach went straight for the game Wacamole

 He loves his new frog

 Madison loved her new bunny

 Madison's Easter Dress

We hope everyone had a fun Easter (a month ago)

Hunt those Eggs

The kids had a few Egg Hunts for Easter.

First official one was with Playgroup at the park.

 Another was with their cousins at my parents house

 Zach found a hard boiled egg and was like "what is this" and threw it on the ground

 She was really going for that one

 "Look Mom the egg is right there.....now get it for me"

We did a number of "mock" Easter egg hunts at home, prepping for the real egg hunts. The kids LOVED hunting for Easter eggs, but loved it more when they had candy in them. We ended up with SO much candy that we are still eating it.