Volcano Playdate

Today we invited over some friends for a volcano playdate.

We got this idea to make tin foil volcano's from Ramblings of a Crazy Woman. As you can see, I ran out of red food coloring, so we had yellow lava instead.

Since I had 16 kids here, I made 6 volcano's for them so they could be in small groups to do it. It would have been such a pain to make 6 different clay volcano's, so I'm so glad that I saw this tin foil one!

Then we used eye droppers to squirt "lava" onto a volcano.

This craft turned out really cute!

We read Our World Volcanoes by Valerie Bodden, it is a Great informational book made for younger kids. We also watched a youtube movie on an erupting volcano. It was a GREAT playdate!

Tt Table Top Toys

This is another week that had a ton the table top toys that go with the letter of the week, which is Tt.

Here is Lyssy weighing teddy bears, as you can see she also decided to do a few other things with them.

Putting toothpicks in a parmesean shaker is great for fine motor skills.

We also had tracing. Aidman made this great truck.

I had all these shapes ready for the kiddos to trace.

Tracing has been Lyssy's favorite table top activity this week.

I also put out triangles and glue to make art with.

We counted to Two, Ten, Twelve, and Twenty with toothpicks.

Here is Aidman "blowing out the candles".

Lyssy is tonging teddy bears.

Tea Time Thursday

I had big plans for this weeks Tea Time Thursday that I do with On a Whimm, but it just didn't happen today. Instead we had a alittle snack time tea party. We ate cheese crackers and trail mix. We also read the book Miss Spider's Tea Party.

The kiddos loved it.

Since I didn't get to go big like I wanted to, I'm going to show off all our tea sets. Back in Feb. we had a giant tea party for Lyssy's birthday. I'm not a big thirft store shopper, but I hit the thrift stores for it. I bought all of these tea pots for $8 or less.

Little miss piggie.

Aidman's favorite color.

A cute little house.

I love this veggie pot.

I already had this one. My dad gave it to me when I was little because I collected Precious Moments, now Lyssy's bedroom is done in my whole collection. This is Lyssy's favorite pot.

I painted this set with my granny when Eric and I first got married.

The Picnic Begins

Who doesn't LOVE picnics?? I am going to join the fun Picnic over at ABC and 123, won't you join us too?

This is our family...

I am Branflakes, a fun loving and crafty mama. I am a stay at home mom and LOVE spending time with my kiddos and teaching them as much as I can. I also NEED me time, so I take it because without it I'm not the best mom I could be.

Hugging me is my sweet, cuddly, 4 1/2 year old, talk to anybody, mama's boy, Aidman. He is ALL boy! He loves dirt, bikes, bugs, army guys, and wants to be a police "oppicer" when he grows up.

Here is Daddy. He just started his own business in February in the computer field and I could not be prouder of him. He is a great provider and supports me in any crazy off the wall thing I do with the kids (you have seen the wall haven't you?).

Snuggling with her daddy is 3 year old Prissy Lyssy. She is prissy, but she's also so much fun and LOVES to tag along with her big brother. She is IN the terrible 3's (we didn't have terrible 2's, it hit both my kids at 3), and is giving mama a run for her money. She is very shy around people she doesn't know or hasn't seen in a while, and that's about the only time she clings to mama, other than then she is little miss independent.

Adventures of a Flake is about our family. It has alittle of everything on it: our playdates, our ABC learning, mama's time away from the kids, our fun outings, our cute crafts, and more. I know Adventures of a Flake seems like such a STRANGE name for a blog and makes me sound flighty. And while I am flighty sometimes, I'm not usually. I thought it was funny and tied in cute with my nickname Branflakes. If I could change it I would, but it just seems like too much of a hassle at this point.

The kiddos and I LOVE craft projects, usually the open ended ones or the ones they come up with on their own are our favorites. We LOVE to get out of the house and go hang out with friends, we LOVE our playgroup. We love going to church (especially when mama's the preschool teacher) and small group. We love being silly, laughing, and just being together.

We also LOVE picnics!! Here in Florida, our favorite time to picnic is October through April (because June- Sept. it can be around 100 degrees outside and unless I'm in the water, I really don't wanna be in the hot and humid weather). But the summer months are GREAT for beach picnics, and we go there often. We have Great wooden picnic table in our backyard that we have picnics on several times a week during our "fall/winter" season.

Join me over at ABC and 123's Prize Picnic for some table talk so we can all get to know each other alittle better! And while you're here, feel free to snoop around my blog, you just might find some fun things!

Trike-A-Thon

Today we had a Trike-A-Thon with our playgroup PALS to raise money for St. Jude's Children's Hospital.

Last year PALS raised almost $3000 for St. Jude's and we are REALLY hoping to beat that this year.

It was a HOT day, but the kiddos had so much fun riding their trikes.

And playing at the park.

Two police officers came out to support us. They even announced us and told the kids to "get ready, get set, go" over their PA. Then when the kids went they turned on the sirens. They also brought stickers for the kiddos and let them get in the cars.

A local news crew came out and recorded the kiddos. They were so EXCITED to see themselves on TV!

A local Chick-Filla donated 50 kiddie meals too! It was such a Yummy lunch!

It was such a GREAT morning!

So ashamed of myself!

I have lived here my ENTIRE life!! Florida Southern College has always been within 15 minutes of my house and I have never bothered to look around at the Awesome Frank Lloyd Wright Architecture. Oh I've been there before... to go to the dorms. I've also walked the 3 mile lake that sits in front of it countless times. But I have never toured or even thought about the fact that the largest one site collection of Frank Lloyd Wright in the WORLD was right in my back yard.... Until last night that is.

My book club read the novel Loving Frank by Nancy Horan this month. It is loosely based on Frank Lloyd Wright and his mistress Mamah. This is a very well written book and leads to ALOT of thought and discussion. I liked it, but I had a Great deal of conflict with it, and that's all I'm going to go into about the book because of all the discussion that could be had.

Because this books main character had history here, we just had to tour it!! OH! I can not even describe that beauty of this place!! And my pictures are pretty sad, so check out the GOOD pictures here!! I would have LOVED to go to college in such a pretty place.

Actually, I know where my next date night is going to be held. I'm going to surprise Daddy with a picnic right in front of this beautiful water dome. I think it will be pretty romantic.

This has been the 9th edition of 52 weeks of mom hosted by Forever in Blue Jeans.

Tubes and Tunnels

A couple weeks ago a friend of mine gave me about 3 cups of marbles. We've been putting them to good use, but Aidman has told me over and over that we needed to roll them. Today he finally got his wish. We used tubes to make tunnels for the marbles.

This was a GIANT hit with all 3 kiddos!! They played with it for an hour straight!! WOOHOO!! Aidman must have told me 10 times that this was "SO AWESOME"!

So simple, yet such a big hit! I LOVE those types of activities.

BTW...I taped cups to the wall to catch the marbles so that wouldn't be all over my kitchen, I would recommend doing that!

Tissue Paper Tt

These turned out SO cute!!

The kiddos painted glue onto their Tt's.

Then they pressed on the tissue paper squares.

So cute!

Tt Lessons

This is going to be a Terrific and BUSY week!

Art:
-Tissue paper Tt
-Tracing (TTT)
-Tiger painting
-Triangle art (TTT)

Science:
-Turtles, visit them
-Bottle Tornadoes
-Tube Tunnels for marbles

Math:
-Toothpick and marshmallow structures
-Count to 2, 3, 10, 12,20
-Train Puzzle
-Teddy bear weighing (TTT)
-Toothpicks in vase (TTT)
-Textures (TTT)

Cooking:
-Tomato pic
-Tuna sandwiches

Movement/Outside:
-Tag
-Walk a Trail
-Play Twister
-Throw a ball
-Jump on Trampoline

Literacy:
-Tootie Ta song
-Teddy Bear song
-Tongue twisters
-Talk on Telephone

Social Studies:
-Texas

Table Top:
listed above as TTT

Tt words not listed above:
tangerine
tapioca
taffy
tools
time
tree
trucks
tall
tale
thank you
tiny
tulle
trash
tennis
tub
toes
Titantic
touch
tummy
taste
terrified
teeth