Some crafting and a school project for Ava

I had a whole post almost ready about Memorial Day , but never finished it, since I'm not really into it anymore I'll just show some of the craft stuff we have been doing.

This is actually a lapbook that Ava and I put together, it was my first one ever and we had a lot of fun with it.

I found all the things to print out online and Ava colored and I cut out all the stuff and glued it to the folders.

It was based on her favorite book

Hand, Hand, Fingers, Thumb

I bought a small sewing kit for the kids to try out and this is the elephant "Ellie" that Sydney made, although she didn't do all of it herself it was a good start.


I went to the Dollar Tree and bought some cans of shaving cream, and squirted liquid water color paint in it, the kids had fun squishing it and painting with it.




We also used the liquid water colors in bingo bottles with white crayons to make these pictures.

My nephew Connor came over and tried out the shaving cream too.

Sydney - 6 1/2

We very rarely drink pop, but I bought a case of Mexican Coke from Coscto for Easter when we went over to my sisters house, I gave Ryan a bottle, today and he was very surprised.
He walks outside and takes a drink and then comes back in and says "Mom, does this have caffeine in it?"
"Yep"
He tries to hand it back to me, "Oh, I can't have caffeine until I'm 18."

I told him that was alcohol and it's 21. :)

Gretchen - 6 months old

I haven't been much in the mood to blog lately, I think the past year is catching up with me.

Last summer we started remodeling our house and it was so busy, not to mention I was pregnant with my 4th baby, we had weeks without our bathroom and months without our kitchen.

I started home schooling a kindergartner and 2nd grader in September, while taking care of a 2 year old and Gretchen was born in November.

Travis switched hours in February or March, so that he works at 3 or 4 am, this has been nice in some ways but it kind of makes it more difficult too, mostly just the change shakes things up a bit.

Now the school year is almost over and I have been trying to do a good job and also have fun with the kids, but my house is getting smaller by the minute and we have another busy summer of finishing remodeling (hopefully finishing).

I need a vacation!

But I told Travis ,not camping, and I have a 6 month old so how much of a vacation can I really have! (Don't worry , I'll be fine, just venting, I feel better already)

Which brings me to my point

Gretchen is 6 months old!

She is around 19lb (big girl)

She will be sitting up soon

She has eaten rice and oatmeal cereals, bananas, applesauce and peas

She really likes her mom and IF she is in the right mood she will let other people hold her too

She does pretty well in the nursery at church , in fact she has fallen asleep a few times

She likes chewing on her toes

She "sings" when she is tired

She still gets up once or twice at night

She smiles a lot

Sick kids

Here are the 2 sick kids on Monday.

Ava is feeling better now, although she does still have a runny nose, and Gretchen looks better here than she is acting.

Ava wanted to watch The Tale of Despereaux , she was telling me how funny it was

" the kitty gets out and wants to get the rats, with it's sharp finger nails and feeter nails!"

Painting projects

We have an odd space in our kitchen that we hadn't painted yet.It was an old ironing board in a cabinet in the kitchen. When we first moved in one of the first projects I did was to take the ironing board out and I put shelves in instead, it became a medicine cabinet.

When we redid our kitchen we painted everything but the front of that cupboard. I told Travis that I really wanted to paint a chalkboard there.

He wasn't that into it, but eventually I wore him down, and here it is.

The kids also had some painting fun; since we went to see the tulips I thought they could paint some.

Ava had fun with finger paint.

Sydney's Ryan's mine


Ava took care of using up the leftover paint.



I was so proud of Ava she was trying to write her name and she did this A perfectly!(She didn't get any farther than that, maybe because I made a big deal about it and took a picture)





We got this ice cream ball (I don't think that is it real name) last year, but hadn't used it until now.

You just add the ingredients in the top and put ice and rock salt in the bottom, let the kids jump on the trampoline for 15 min(or however you want to shake it up) and you've got yummy ice cream!

The recipe book tells how to make all kinds of flavors , I think coconut is next.
They are actually selling these at our Costco. I love Costco!

Boogers

Ava has has a runny nose for a few days, not a big deal, but , come on , she's 2 and she doesn't always wipe her nose right away.

The kids were outside playing and all of the sudden Ryan and Sydney come in and leave Ava outside, crying. Sydney says Ryan told Ava she was gross and he wasn't going to play with her anymore because she had snot running down her face.

I told Ryan not to be a hypocrite because he picks his nose, but if he sees someone else's boogers he freaks out. ( I admit I was a little annoyed)

Well, Ryan gets upset and tells me ,why do I have to call him names.

Me- what name?

Ryan- "well, I don't know, something really mean, like a Democrat, or something!"

My kids- the slaves

Here is Ryan's "Domo" from Target and a felt donut that I made, I thought it turned out pretty cute.

We have been reading The Tale Of Despereaux for the last 4 weeks. We got it from the library and have already renewed it once and it is due again tomorrow, so I think we will have to renew it one more time. I like to read books to the kids if there is a movie to see, before they see the movie; I think it's really hard to do it the other way around.

I have been having a really hard time getting into this book, which is why we have had it so long, but I'm hoping that I will be able to finish soon and then the kids can watch the movie, which is what it's all about anyway, right??

So, we were reading tonight about a girl in the book who was sold to be a slave to this man , and a man who worked for the king came and took her away and told her she was going to be a paid servant at the castle now. Oh ya, should I have said, SPOILER ALERT!?

Ryan had to ask me to "Pause", and asked me what a servant was. So, we talked for a few minutes about what a slave is and what a servant is; Sydney says, "so, we are slaves, right?"

I was like "slaves to who??"

Sydney, "well, slaves to you , we have to do what you say and we don't get paid."

She's one of us now

Gretchen is now a food eater.