Getting the Wiggles Out

We LOVE to be outside, it helps to get our wiggles and jiggles out! During our "cool" months (October-May) we are outside every day!

Our favorite outdoor activity is to ride bikes up and down our street.

We love to hang out in our backyard,

Go to parks, to relax...
and play,

explore for things like snails.

and check out different outdoor wonders.

During our HOT months (May- Sept) we don't go outside as much, but when we do, we are in the water! Lounging in the pool, (this picture was taken BEFORE swim lessons)

at the beach,

or in the water spouts.

It's nice living in Florida because no matter the time of year, we can be outside. The summer time is alittle more difficult because we try to stay cooled off, must keep sunscreen on, and need to keep hydrated at all times, but that's nothing because we love that we can be outdoors whenever we want.

Check out ABC and 123 to see what other mamas do to keep the wiggles out!

Open Ended Art

I've really been wanting to participate in Teaching My Little Bookworm's Open Ended Art, so I'm playing a bit of catch up this week.

Today's challenge was a Yellow Collage. I am cheating just a bit on this one because it's more cream than yellow, BUT this is a display of my very FAVORITE type of open ended art so I just had to add it. I was off cleaning something, Aidman was in the kitchen with a box of art supplies that consisted of paper, scissors, glue, buttons, sequins, feathers, etc. He decided he wanted to make a person and he did. When he finished he ran to me to show me what he made!! He was very proud of what he did and so was I! Why is this my favorite type of open ended art you ask... it's because I didn't even ask them to go to the table, I wasn't even around, he did is entirely on his own.

I set out a bunch of yellow items, but they weren't so interested in that today, so I'll update my post with a true yellow collage when they decided they are in the mood to do it. I'm sure the art table will pull them into it's charm in the next day or two because I want them to do more stuff/art entirely on their own without me prompting them to do it.

For catch up, last week was yellow paint. Aidman wanted to use his new race car sponges that he got for his B-day. At first Aidman did NOT want the two colors mixed, but the 2 three yo girls had different plans and in the end he really liked that the blue and yellow made his favorite color green.


Another catch up, a couple weeks ago was tissue paper. I gave them glue, tissue paper, and a baby food jar and they had at it. They both have different ideas of what it will be used for.

My Boy is FIVE!

Aidman's 1st Birthday!

I can't help but be sentimental on my sweet childrens birthdays. Our children are truly and gift and a blessing from God and I am so very grateful that they are in my life.

2nd Birthday

3rd Birthday!
4th Birthday!

5th Birthday!

I LOVE this little guy!!

Mama is Sick Muffin Tin Monday

I am NOT feeling well today. After the birthday party, I came down with a nasty upper respiratory cold. Daddy took care of me all day yesterday, but he had to go to work today, so we are on our own. The kiddos have been playing pretty well (quietly, without too much fighting, or mommy playing with them) thank goodness to all the new toys, so I wanted to make their simple "mama doesn't feel good, so you'll just get what is easy" lunch into something special. Of course, that can ALWAYS be done easily by putting it into a muffin tin! They had chicken noodle soup, cheese, crackers, and green beans.

My almost 5 year old is so stinkin cute!!!

Check out Her Cup Overfloweth for more Muffin Tin Modays.

Super Mario Cart Party Decor

Today we had Aidman, EE, and EP's GIANT birthday party. I have several friends who all invite the same group of friends (plus family members) to our birthday parties. Instead of having 3 different parties to take up 3 weekends, we decided to combine them and just have one really big blowout! The boys all had their birthdays in the same week (Aidman's is this Tues) and turn 5, 5, and 6. They all like Mario so we decided to have a Mario Cart party.

We made a great obstacle course around the perimeter of the yard. Above is the finish line.

We got palates for the kids to run on. They really liked this.

There were cones to run around.

Pools to wade through or run around.

Pool noodles (held up by chop sticks) with a sprinkler at the end to run through.

Turtle shell (sand box lids) to step over.

A swinging tire swing to run around. The three boxes standing are stations where water squirters and water balloons were set up for nonracers to throw and squirt at the kids.

A mushroom farm to run around. It's a punching bag with a cardboard shaped like a mushroom on top.

Outside of the obstacle course, we also had a big inflatable slide, a trampoline, sand box filled with coins to find, and a swing set to play on. Needless to say, there was TONS for the kids to do!

We decorated the whole yard with flags/pendants and I made some saying Happy Birthday Aidman, EE, and EP.

I made these really CUTE piranha plant center pieces.

We found these great Mario Cart window decals.

Oh and so that they would have carts to race in, we made these GREAT banana box race cars. We even painted them to look like the actual characters cars.


It was a wonderful party!! I'll post pictures of the actual party fun later.

Cherry Cobbler ~ KITK

Cherries are on sale this week, so we bought a bunch (probably too much). Lyssy and I decided to make cherry cobbler because Daddy loves any dessert with cherries.

Lyssy took the stems off the cherries.

I pitted the cherries using a straw (yes that is a crazy straw, but it worked wonders).

Lyssy poured in the ingredients.

And mixed it all up.

Top it with vanilla bean ice cream and you have a pretty good dessert.

I'm not going to include the recipe because I did not love it (the cherries were great, the breading wasn't as good). If you have a good cherry cobbler or crisp recipe then please send it my way!

Join A little fun with me and Lu for more kids in the kitchen!

Organizing Picnic Talk

I love participating in ABC and 123's Picnic Table Talk, but when I saw the topic this week I wasn't really excited. I have read several of other bloggers talk about how they love to organize. I do NOT love to organize stuff, I have a small house with too much stuff and too many ideas and I just can't really do what I want to do, so organizing frustrates me. But instead of talking about what I don't like to do, I want to talk about what I DO like to do.

I LOVE LOVE LOVE to organize people. You may not know that I organize a playgroup of over 70 moms and have been doing so for 3 years now. Thank God, I don't do it all by myself, I have several assistant organizers who help ALOT! Because of the amount of members, there is at least one event held/offered every day (of course I don't go every day). PALS is a lifesaver for me!! Before I had PALS, I was so lonely and had almost no friends with kids. I have met my very best friends through PALS. It's not just a playgroup, it's more like a family, a true support system. I love to organize PALS, it gives me a creative outlet for all of my many many ideas. I love the fact that while I am helping to build a community for other moms, I am also reaping the benefits of having friends for my kids and myself. I love the fact that with other people, I'm able to do things that I probably would not have done with just my kids.

We use a website called meetup.com, it makes organizing easy. There is a calendar where I add the events to and the moms are able to go and rsvp yes or no to each event. There is a message board where we are able to chit chat in between events. There is even a photo section where we can upload pictures that we take at events. It is completely private which makes us feel safer to know that not just anyone can see into our group at what we are doing. I just really LOVE that website, it really does make organizing a group so much easier and is well worth the cost.

I really don't consider myself a very organized person, so I really don't know how I keep up with it all, but somehow I manage. I even manage to fool other people into thinking that I am organized, which I think is just hysterical! I guess the truth though is that I am much more organized than I actually feel, especially when it comes to organizing people (not stuff).

Ii lessons

It's the letter Ii week! It is Incredible to think that we are almost done with our letter of the week lessons! I have a few ideas of what we'll be doing next, but I'm not completely settled on anything yet.

Art:
-Ink Ii- I showed them what ink was by breaking a pen and then we wrote on the letter Ii with ink.

Lyssy is concentrating so hard!

-Initial Art
-Make Ice structures
-Invisible Art
-Make Instruments- we made paper plate maracas and then had alittle parade.


Science:
-Inchworm farm
-Search for Insects
-How long does it take for Ice to melt?

Math:
-Measure Inches
-Insect counting and patterns

Cooking:
-Ice cream sundaes
-Italian bread
-Icing

Movement:
-Instrument parade

Literacy:
-Brainstorm Ideas

Social:
-locate Iowa and Indiana on map

More Ii words:
iguana
impossible
igloo
Italy
icicle
Indian
introduce

Dippin' Muffin Tin

Today's theme for Muffin Tin Monday is dips. Let me just say... this was the most delicious muffin tin EVER!!! In the tin is homemade guacamole, homemade black bean dip, sour cream, salsa, strawberry yogurt, and chocolate fondue. YUMMY!!

To dip we had nachos with cheese, carrots, cucumbers, cherries, bananas, and plums.


The kids couldn't contain their excitement! They LOVED this dippin' lunch.

mmmm... cherries dipped in chocolate.