Bonus Room Re-do Part 2

I have pretty much finished my craft area and I am so excited to have everything in one place!! I still have to hang my clock and cork board but other then that I am done. I am going to hang the clock on the right side and the cork board on the left.

Chris also finished our felt board and magnetic board for preschool and hung them up. I am almost done with the art area so I will post pictures of that soon.

Bit of This and That

Happy Memorial Day!!

Remember this post? I am not close to my 30 recipes yet but I am working on it. On a sheet of paper I put 3 columns: Definite, maybe and Need to Try. I have 5 definite recipes I am going to use, 3 maybes and 8 recipes I want to try. For the next few weeks we will be trying a lot of new recipes until I get all 30. Once I get all my recipes I will post a list of them. Has anyone else started?

I have a new author that I am loving!! Her name is Diane Chamberlain. My friend, Teresa, recommended one of her books which I still haven't read but I just finished reading Before the Storm and it was really good. She reminds me of Jodi Picoult but better!!!

While I am at it I will do a movie review:) I went and saw Ghosts of Girlfriends Past with Matthew McConaughey and Jennifer Garner. I love both of them but the movie just wasn't that good. Story line was pretty weak and if you want to see it I would recommend renting it.

I told you it was a bunch of this and that!

I Need to Vent!

I was going to post on my craft area but I will save that for tomorrow because I need to vent a little! Parenting is always hard but the past two weeks have been so hard!!! I never knew how difficult it would be to parent two children with a three year age gap. Emily is proving to be a little bit of a challenge and I can't remember how to discipline a 16 month old. I honestly don't remember! They are already arguing!! Both girls and Chris have been sick this week so there has been extra whining from all (except Chris :) ) and less sleep. It all boils down to this: I am grumpy, exhausted and my house is trashed! Please tell me I am not alone and that next week will be better. OK rant over!

Wordless Wednesday

My Little Artist

Since I posted about Ellie's lack of interest in crafting and art she has been drawing and crafting like crazy. I was beginning to wonder if she could secretly read and read my post and said, "I'll show her". Anyway we have had a lot of fun with our craft projects but more then anything she has been drawing like crazy. Normally she draws people the most and this week has been no exception BUT she also drew her first still life picture. I was cooking dinner and she was watering the tomato plants. She came in and got paper and a crayon and went out to the deck and drew this picture. I am so proud of it!!!!!!

Preschool

I didn't take a lot of pictures last week. I kept forgetting. Here a few things we did:

We washed rocks for our nature bowl

Color by number worksheet

Poured and sifted sand (Ellie did this for almost 40 min.):)

We did a rainbow theme last week which was a great review of signing our colors and we read What Makes A Rainbow and Noah's Ark.

We made a rainbow with glue and colored sand.

It turned out great!

Put the alphabet in order

Worked on puzzles

We also played with the wedgits, read lots of books, and worked on sequencing cards.

Wordless Wednesday - She Works Hard For The Money

Bonus Room Rearrange

I drool over blogs when they post pictures of their homeschool rooms!! Our school / art supplies are stored (thrown) in the bottom of the entertainment center, some in the bonus room, and some downstairs. Well I have decided that I wanted to change the bonus room from being a family/play room to a family room, craft room, and homeschool room. I am so sick of our stuff being unorganized and scattered. So far I have organized our homeschool activities and I am so excited and so is Ellie!! I need to go back and label everything but here is what I have done so far:

Now here is a breakdown (humor me):

Box: Any language art activities

Box: Math and counting activities

Scales, globe and the file folder holder with worksheets

Holiday books

Box: Montessori containers for sorting etc.

Forming letter activities and create a story stuff

4 Plastic containers: beads, pegs, lacing cards and flashcards

Language art activities

Pattern and sequencing activities

Box: Felt stories and felt cut outs

Workbooks and more Holiday books

My homeschool reference books

Nesting blocks, Wooden shoe for tying shoe practice and Widgets

Bottom 2 baskets are where we put the preschool activities we are currently working on

Wooden puzzles

Floor puzzles

The other 2 baskets that hold the preschool activities we are currently working on

My next project in that room is my craft area so stayed tuned:)

Art

When I was pregnant with Ellie I envisioned us sitting at the table doing crafts for hours. Oh was I so wrong. Ellie is not a craft girl or art girl. As much as I try she will not sit for more then 5 min. to work on something except play-doh every now and then. Here were my attempts last week:

Painting with water but she decided to pretend it was fingernail polish

Drawing and coloring cardboard

Painting and then using plastic knives and toothpicks to make designs in the paint. She decided it was fun to paint the plate too.

The biggest success was hanging a piece of contact paper on a window for each of them and collecting items from outside and inside to stick to it. The best part of this activity was how well they shared the supplies. I stuck a basket in between the windows and they did such a great job of sharing. Ellie liked this but Emily loved this!!!

I am trying to do several art activities a week and I am still holding out hope that one day the three of us will sit for hours and work on crafts together.

Ellie's Mother's Day Interview

My Mom
I really love it when my mom makes me cookies
My mom likes to wear fancy party dresses
My mom always tells me, that she loves to sing and dance
The best thing she does is gives me hugs and kisses
It makes her happy when I don't cry
My mom loves to relax by laying on the couch
I like it when she plays freeze tag
The best thing she cooks is meat and salad
When my mom shops she likes to buy fruit and doughnuts
My mom’s favorite household chore is cleaning up the bonus room
My mom’s favorite TV show is PBS kids
If she could go on a trip, she would go to Chicago
I love my mom because she takes good care of me

I pulled the questions from here. I want to do this every year to see how the girls answers change throughout the years. Your turn!

Cinco de Mayo

Tuesday we celebrated Cinco de Mayo. Ellie loves to wake up to me telling her we are celebrating ??? today. She doesn't care what ??? is she just knows that if we are celebrating we are going to have something yummy to eat and usually do something fun:) Hopefully Tuesday was no exception! We were very busy!!! Truthfully I have never "celebrated" Cinco de Mayo before (other then going out for Mexican food and hanging with friends) but I thought it would be a good reason to talk about Mexico etc. We broke out the globe again and while they played with it I talk to the about why people celebrate that day but mainly we talked about Mexico (people, language, food, etc.) I love the way Ellie sits and listens and truly seems interested to learn. We made sombrero's:

Colored Mexican pictures: Once were the girls colored them we used Emily's to hunt and find different Mexican items and cut Ellie's into a puzzle. Made a yummy meal: Tacos, corn on the cob, guacamole and chips and for dessert Sopapilla Cheesecake Pie. It was delicious!!!! The recipe said it is was a Mexican dessert but I swear it came straight from Paula Dean with all of that butter and cream cheese!!Read this great book:
Played Mexican Bingo (can't remember what it is called)

The biggest hit of the night.......we made a pinata and filled it with dollar tree stuff and candy. The girls had soooo much fun with this.

What the pictures didn't show: Emily hanging on my legs whinning the whole time Ellie and I were making dinner, Emily eating her paint, Ellie crying b/c I messed up her picture by accident, and the house getting completely trashed b/c it was such a busy day and I was too exhausted to clean up (other then the kitchen) after putting the girls down. Was it worth it....absolutely!!!!! Do I want to do it again tomorrow? No way:)

Wordless Wednesday - Strawberry Picking

What's For Dinner?

Not sure if anyone has noticed but I stopped posting our weekly menu awhile back. Why you may ask (humor like you care:)) because I have stopped making out a menu for the week. I still do the girls menu but I have not planned out our menu in awhile. When I was doing it it made life so much easier not to mention it is better on the pocket book because I shop from a list but I got so sick of trying to come up with a dinner menu. Well I was checking out one of my favorite blogs and came across her simple yet great idea. She broke it down into Step 1, Step 2 and Step 3 and another post on a really cute fridge holder for the recipes that she covered in....you guessed it, scrapbook paper:) Several people have commented with their favorite recipes so check that out too. So this Sunday I am planning on sitting down and getting started. Anybody want to join me?