Note to self

A note that Sydney gave me today, I'm not sure yet what happened.

Notice the tears.

Super Cute!

We spent most of the day yesterday making these really cute clothespin/ peg dolls.

I found them here.

These are the 2 that I made.

These 2 are Sydney's.



I hope to make some more soon!

Ava writes her name

Well, the title of this post pretty much says it all, we have been working with Ava to write her name, I write it lightly and she traces it.

The other day the kids told me to come look, she had written it on the table (I put white paper all over the table just in case creativity strikes)

Then she was so proud she wrote her name with markers


You get the idea.

Pippi Longstocking

We are just finishing a unit study on the story

Pippi Longstocking.

Just for my own benefit, so I can remember it, I wanted to do a post on some of the things that we did.

Last summer we found this version of Pippi and I read it to the kids, they loved it! Ryan laughed so much and we love the illustrator.

So, when I saw in the newspaper that Pippi was coming to Mcintyre Hall this fall, I bought the book and we started reading it again. We went to see the play last Saturday and it was really well done, quite a bit like the book, again , Ryan laughed a lot.

We got a great book about the author, Astrid Lindgren,

Women Of Our Time Astrid Lindgren Storyteller To The World.

The book was a biography but was interesting enough that I read the whole thing to the kids, lots of info in it besides just about the author.

Since the author was from Sweden, I thought that we could learn some Geography as well. I got some books from the library on Sweden, and I printed some worksheets from enchanted learning . The kids colored a map and filled in relevant info, we drew and colored the flag of Sweden, colored and cut out a Viking paper doll, and Sydney drew a picture of the author's house from a description in the book.

We did a little math using dates and put together a world floor puzzle and found Sweden on it.

Probably the last thing we will do is watch the Pippi Longstocking movie that I remember watching when I was young. I'm pretty sure that the voices don't match up with their mouths and that the movie is probably pretty dumb (don't tell my kids I said that!) but it will be a good end to our study.

Since I don't have a picture for this post, here are the kids last Christmas.

Little smarty

Ava and Gretchen and I were playing on my bed, when we hear a yell for help upstairs. I left Gretchen on my bed and ran out of the room, Ava was following close behind.

I told Ava "stay and watch Gretchen for me."



Ava continues following me, " God will watch Gretchen."

More wierd art from Sydney

Sydney's birthday is this week and she is having a few cousins over for tea, this is a note that she is sending to her cousin Brianna.

You and Hailey and me

my (Sydney's) B-day

Hailey, Brianna, and Sydney are having a tea party and Ava is off to the side holding a book saying "huh?"

and she thinks the girls are talking about her.

She just cracks me up!

Fun with Play-doh

If you know Sydney at all you will recognize her artwork above.


I printed out these great Play-doh mats, I saw them on someone else's blog but I can't remember where.
I just ran them through my Xyron laminator and they are ready for hours of fun. (I got this with a 50% off coupon at Michael's, a great investment, especially if you home school)

This was fun for all of us, I usually don't let the kids play with play-doh in the house, it's an outside toy, but with these mats the play was more structured so there wasn't play-doh all over the place.

That makes me happy :)

More one year old pictures

Some more pictures of our sweet little one year old

Here she is modeling her birthday gift from Aunt Worm and Beaver Steve

I made her little leggings to go with a birthday shirt that I sewed a 1 on

Here is her favorite stuffie... "Canimal" a gift from her big sister Ava, and her "blankie" in the background

7 teeth

has taken a few steps at a time but isn't "walking" yet

walks on her knees

great eater

our third "dangerous girl"

already has her own DS

likes to pull hair

loves baby Einstein movies

My baby turns 1

Veteran's Day

We went on a walk today to collect leaves for an art project and I thought this was an appropriate picture to post today.

Sometimes babies just aren't hungry

Ava was trying to force feed me with a baby spoon and I was pressing my lips together really tightly so she couldn't put it in my mouth,

Ava says,

"Come on , baby, open your pie-hole!"

Ava helping me make lunch

My baby has a baby!

Well, a baby doll. :)

Where do they come up with this stuff?

I was talking to Ava about the school co-op that we are going to, and I was telling her that I was a Kindergarten teacher there.

Ava - "You can't be a teacher , you're a mommy!"

Me- "I can be a teacher and a mommy, you are a sister and a kid and a friend, right?"

Ava- "you are a teacher and a mommy and..... a babysitter?

Me -"yep, I could be a babysitter and a ...."

Ava- " and a booger-picker?!"

Miss smarty pants

Ava after she colored the middle black part (that's what I called it)

"That's the pupil, you know"

I'm so proud

We started a home school co-op on Friday and the kids had a great time.

I was worried because Ryan and Sydney had 3 different classes and they had to go to different rooms. Ryan was especially worried, but they found the rooms and were so excited with their classes.I was especially proud of Ryan because he signed up for a cake decorating class and I talked to him before about how there might not be other boys in there (there were 2 other boys) and if some girls made fun of him to not get mad, just tell them that his dad likes to decorate cakes too.

Well, sure enough there were 2 girls who said he should leave and that the class was for girls only, and Ryan told them exactly what I had told him!! :)

Then he told them about some cakes that his dad had made for a couple of his birthdays and one of the girls said "cool" , the other girl wasn't convinced but that's ok.

The kids are so looking forward to Friday school, Ryan has a Lego class, cake decorating , and beginning Chess, I couldn't believe how well he can play after only 1 class.

Sydney has crochet, acting and drawing.

I don't have any pictures of the kids at Friday school, but here are some pics of them on a field trip with Travis from last week.

And Ryan's part 2 birthday picture, we had some cousins and friends (not that the cousins aren't friends) over to Grandpa and Grandma's shop to watch Jurassic Park.

Trip to Seattle Aquarium and Ryan's Bday part 1

Ryan turned 9 on Thursday (wow, almost double digits)! Travis took off work for Thursday and Friday, so we went to the Aquarium on Ryan's big day. For those of you who like the Seattle Aquarium, I'm sorry, we had never been, unless I had been as a kid and don't remember it, and we won't likely go back. The kids had fun , but Travis and I were very underwhelmed.

For the last few years we have taken the kids to the Point Defiance Zoo and Aquarium and we really like it. But, it's about 2.5 hours away so we thought we would try this since it was about 1 hour away.

I do really like the jellyfish,



especially THIS one!

I guess from looking at my pictures, I thought the most picture worthy things there were my kids! :)

I told you I was thinking about making something for Ryan, well, it all started with a pair of pj pants that little baby Ryan used to wear,

I saved them hoping that I could use them for something special, some clothes just remind you of your kids when they were babies.

Sydney was so happy to be helping make Ryan's special gift!

Ryan loved his new monster stuffie and it has a lot of friends on Ryan's bed.

Sleeping Beauty

Ava hasn't taken naps since she was about 18 months, so when I find her passed out on the couch , I just have to take a picture.

She was really tired, notice the half eaten cheese string in her hand.