A Pretty Bouquet

O recently spent the day with her grandmother, and when I picked her up, she was SO excited that she had picked a bouquet of flowers for me. I loved how they put the flowers in a jelly jar with a shell tied around it for decoration. So simple and pretty.

All About Red

I've recently started taking down the bags (one at a time) from O's color hunt game to teach E her colors. She LOVES exploring the objects in the bags, and I think she may know the color red (although, she hasn't said the word red yet).

I love how she put the bag on her arm to wear it like a pocketbook.

She was especially enthralled with the red hairband. (I had to watch her very closely because she was very tempted to put it in her mouth). She was very persistant in trying to put it on her wrist to wear like a bracelet.

Her persistance paid off, and she eventually got the hairband on her wrist. I love to watch her when she is so focused on a task. I love that she persisted until she accomplished her goal and never became frustrated.


Btw, you may notice that E wears a lot of tie-dyed shirts...our craft activity during our beach trip was tie dying shirts. I took lots of E's stained and plain night shirts and play shirts and made them beautiful. I love tie-dye!

Volcano Fun

A few weeks ago, O told me that she loved volcanoes. I asked if she remembered making a sand volcano last summer, and she didn't. So, we made another one!

First, she filled a water bottle 3/4 full with lake water. Then we built a sand volcano up around it. She put blue food coloring in the water (blue is her favorite color).

Then she put 2 tablespoons of baking soda in the bottle.

I poured in the vinegar, and we watched our volcano explode!

We made it explode several times before O started experimenting with putting sand in the bottle, etc. This was such a fun activity!

Putting Objects in a Large Container

E is REALLY into putting objects into containers and then taking them out again. Since this is her area of interest, I've been focusing on this for most of her activities. When I saw this large container at my mom's house, I knew it would be perfect for E. (the container came from Sam's Club and held pretzels). For the first couple of weeks that we had the container, we just put various objects in it and rolled it around on the floor and shook it. This was a lot of fun, but not as much fun as it could be...

So, I asked Elliott to cut a square hole in the side (I try to avoid cutting things with large knives, if at all possible, since my finger incident). After he cut the hole, I covered the sharp, plastic edges with duct tape. I gave E a basket of toys and showed her how to drop them in and then take them out of the hole.

I love that this container is large enough for her to use a variety of toys and objects that are not chokable.

Blink Card Game

Many months ago a reader of this blog commented that she thought O would enjoy the game Blink. Ever since then I've noticed the game in WM or Target when I walked down the game aisle, but I couldn't bring myself to spend 5 or 6 dollars on it (I'm thrify by nature). I was thrilled, however, to buy a brand new game from the 2nd hand store for 1 dollar! I bought this game when we were on our way to the beach, and we had a great time playing it all week. It says it's for ages 7 and up, but O (at 4 years old) was able to play easily with help from me. Here's a description from Amazon...

It's faster than you think
Two players race to be the first to play all of their cards
Players quickly try to match the shape, count, or color on the cards
The first player out of cards wins
Fast and portable, Blink is instant fun for everyone


This game reminds me very much of a card game that I loved to play with my mom as a child...Spit. Not a very nice name, but SO much fun :) So, I have to say that even though I wasn't willing to spend 5 dollars on the game, I do think it is worth 5 dollars. However, it's even nicer to just pay 1!

Velcro Sandwich Activity

E LOVES O's play kitchen and all of the food in it, so I thought she'd enjoy having some wooden/velcro food activities on her Montessori shelf.

I put a wooden sandwich with fillings that attach via velcro in a basket on her shelf. She was very excited when I showed her this activity. She had fun pulling the sandwich apart, and she was not very interested in putting it back together again. We worked on labeling the bread, pickles, cheese, and tomato in the sandwich and the colors of everything. I plan to put different wooden food items on her shelf each week to keep it interesting for her.

Stacking Wooden Bears

I recently introduced these stacking wooden bears to E. She loves to tear them down, and she's learning to stack them. We discuss colors, body parts, animals (cat, bunny, dog), and clothing (shirt and pants) while we play. I bought this toy from a 2nd hand shop for O a couple of years ago for about 3 dollars. I encourage you to shop for toys and clothes at 2nd hand shops if you want a great deal!

Spelling Words with Necklaces

O recently got these necklaces from a pinata at a birthday party and has had a lot of fun making letters out of them. She was using 2 or 3 necklaces to make each letter, so we challenged her to make a 3 letter word which meant she had to make each letter from just one necklace. She enjoyed this task, and we helped her figure out how to do it :)

E's New Trick

She's started crossing her fingers during meals. She's quite proud! I love all of these little things that she does that are just so cute :)

Kids in the Kitchen...Apples and Onions

O, E, and I are reading Farmer Boy by Laura Ingalls Wilder, and we are really enjoying it! (I enjoy reading the Little House on the Prairie books just as much if not more than O) Almanzo's favorite dish is Apples and Onions. Since O and I had never heard of such a combination, we decided to give it a try!

First, O peeled the onion. I chopped the onion and sauteed it in butter until it was translucent.

O washed the apples with Veggie Wash.

Then we cut the apples together.

I sauteed the apples and onions until the apples were soft and added salt to taste. I was surprised by how good this was! O was pretending to be Eliza Jane (Almanzo's oldest sister) and declared that apples and onions were Eliza Jane's favorite dish, too!


And here's a look at O's supper tray...apples and onions, sweet potato chunks, avocado, salmon, and rotisserie chicken. I love serving O's meals in trays like this one.

Prize Necklaces

O, my mom, and I made prize necklaces for the children who attended O's 4th birthday party in July.

To make prize necklaces, you need ribbons, cellophane, and small treats. I cut strips of cellophane that were about 7 inches wide. I put a pack of cookies in the center and rolled it and tied it at each end. We then put 2 prizes on each side of the cookies to make a total of 5 prizes in each necklace. Each prize is separated from the next by ribbons tied around the cellophane.

The other prizes included mini bubbles, mini playdough, bouncy balls, silly bandz, glitter glue, smarties, mini boxes of raisins, punch balloons, etc. We had fun making the prize necklaces, and they were a hit with O's friends!

Basket of Fabric Squares

One of baby E's Montessori activities is exploring a basket of fabric squares. The fabric squares are sample fabrics that E's grandmother collected when she was recovering several pieces of furniture. We rub the different fabrics with our fingers and on our faces and talk about the different textures. E enjoys this activity!


So soft!

Thank You!!!

Thanks to everyone who notified me of my accidental postings last night! I usually don't read the blog, so I depend on you to tell me if I make a mistake :) I was trying to quickly catch up on blogging for my private family blog and accidentally posted on the wrong blog. I'll blame it on extreme sleep deprivation...E's been sick for a week and a half...1st roseola and now a cold. I gave her a breathing treatment tonight, and hopefully it will help.

So, now you know the girls' names and have seen O's face...oh, well. Worse things could happen, I suppose :) Btw, did you see my amazing kayaking girl? Elliott put her on the kayak so she could see what it felt like to sit on it. She took off and seemed to instinctively know just what to do. E had her first ride on the kayak this weekend, too, but I don't think I posted those pics :)

So, thanks again, to all of you who commented and emailed to let me know about my accidental postings. I'll try to pay closer attention when blogging, but PLEASE let me know if you notice anything like this again. It really is important to us to maintain a little privacy out here in blogland.

Handprint Lilies Shadowbox

I made shadowboxes with flowers made from the girls' handprints along with a picture of them for their grandmothers for Mother's Day.
I followed the directions from Family Fun to make the Easter Lilies, and the shadow boxes came from IKEA. I'm really loving preserving special keepsakes along with photos in shadowboxes lately. I just wish I had a space to hang them :)

Beach Treasures

On our last morning at the beach, we woke the girls up before sunrise so we could watch the sunrise over the ocean. The sky was cloudy, so the sunrise wasn't that impressive. However, we had a great time walking on the beach and found lots of treasures.

We saw many starfish (it's been about 8 years since we've found starfish on the beach here). They were still alive, so we put them back in the water. O found several dead crabs, which she insisted on keeping. We also saw a pod of dolphins. It was a wonderful morning and definitely worth the missed hours of sleep!