Weather Week

This week our lessons and activities have centered around the weather. With Spring on its way in we're also entering tornado season around here so I thought it would be the perfect time to really get to know our weather and what causes it. Especially with two littles that aren't quite over their weather related fears. We chose a few topics that are of particular interest to the girls and categorized our activities. We chose thunder, lightning, rain, clouds, and tornadoes. This morning we made rain in a jar to match the rain falling outside our window.



Supplies:
Glass Jar
Hot Water
Plate
Ice cubes




Heat your water until it is almost boiling and pour into your glass jar.



Quickly cover your jar with your plate and then place the ice cubes on top. Keeping a towel handy to clean up the mess when they knock the jar of water over. The voice of experience speaking there.



Watch what happens as it begins to rain inside your jar! The warm moist air from the water rises and mixes with the cool air created by the ice cubes causing condensation and then the rain.

The girls loved this activity and Kait was actually the most entertained. She loves to play with ice so this shouldn't have surprised me.



She kept sneaking the ice cubes off the plate and then she started her own ice experiment.



We have lots more in store for our weather week and lots more "rain" activities. If you're looking for some weather related idea and information check out Weather Wiz Kids, they have compiled an amazing amount of weather related info. We printed most of our worksheets and info from them.

Woody!

The girls and I took a surprise trip to the Disney store about a week ago. It was a big deal for Kait especially. It marked the first time she was in the mall without her stroller and the first time she was able to pick her own toy at the store as well. You could just tell she was proud of herself walking around the mall like a big girl and when we came upon the ridiculously huge face of Mickey Mouse at the entrace to the store she stopped abruptly and wispered "wow". She stood just inside the door staring at everything in complete awe.

Our trip was prompted by Kaitlyn's intense love of Woody and all things Toy Story. I wanted her to have a set of small Toy Story figurines (like the Princesses that they love so much) to play with while she was still so enamored with the movies. I hadn't expected her to zone in on the stuffed versions first thing. We walked around the corner and she spotted them. "Woody!!" she yelled and snatched them right up.



That was all she wrote. She clutched them to her while walking the remainder of the store with us waiting for Kinsley to pick her new toys. Even when checking out she held tight afraid if she put them down that she'd never see them again. She was so proud to get her own special bag, though a little hesitant to put the toys inside.





Bullseye had to be sticking out of the bag while they were inside. She'd walk a bit and then stop, take all the toys out and carry them for a while before stopping to put them back inside.



It was such an incredibly fun day for all of us. I found myself swept up in her complete satisfaction and excitement over such a special day. The fact that we don't do things like this often at all (this was her very first time to get a toy from the Disney store) make it that much more memorable and special. These toys have quickly made their way to the top of the play rotation and she has slept with them every single night since.

Planning and Planting

It's that time of year again, time to start preparing our garden and gathering our seeds. I love the excitement and anticipation of this time of year. I'm hoping that my enthusiasm will rub off on the girls sometime soon, so far it hasn't happened. They love playing in the dirt for sure but when it comes down to actually planting they are less willing to help. Maybe their love for gardening will come soon, for now they just enjoy the eating and really I can't complain about that.

This year we decided to plan our garden together and each make a map of what we would have the garden look like and what it would include.









It was fun to see what everyone thought was the most important element to their garden and the fact that the only items present in all our drawings were tomatoes, corn and watermelon.

This incredible early Spring weather we've been having also got us out to do our first bit of planting, if a bit early.





Kinsley got out there and helped her Papa plant about half a row of potatoes and refused to help me with the onions at all. She much preferred to play lemonade stand and swing. Or sit on the sidelines with her baby sister.





Kait, on the otherhand, loves to be right in the middle of whatever happens to be going on in the garden. I have a feeling she'll be a ton of help when it comes time to start picking, we'll just have to teach her to not pick the whole plant.

Storm Warning

I hadn't intended to take such a lengthy blogging break this time around but it has been just what I needed. After having my wisdom teeth out last week I was down for the count. I truly didn't realize what I was getting myself into and wasn't prepared for any of it. Thankfully I have an incredible family that stepped up and without my hubby, mom, and mother-in-law things wouldn't have gone so smoothly around here. I'm happy to report that I'm nearly back to 100% and now that I can actually eat something I'm feeling much more like myself and things are getting back into routine around here. It's about time. The girls were really feeling the change this time and already this week I can see things starting to settle back down.

We did have an unexpected bump in the road last night in the form of some severe weather. The girls slept through the entire thing but I stayed up to make sure the storm passed us by with no trouble. Some strong winds but nothing to worry about in the end. It did, however, make me realize that I haven't done any preparing for this years storm season as of yet. Our emergency bag was still packed, of course, but hadn't been updated in several months. The flashlights were scattered and many of them with dead batteries after the power outage last week. Not a good sign.

So this morning the girls and I will be getting ready.



Today the girls and I will be going through our bags to make sure everything inside is current, getting familiar with our safe location and learning a bit about tornadoes. If you have any good links for teaching young children about severe weather send them my way!

Cuppow

I just received the most fun little birthday gift in the mail. My sister sent this little jar topper to me and said it looked like something I'd like to try out. She was right, I couldn't wait to try it. But first I had to make some iced tea, I think it is pretty much a requirement to drink tea out of a glass jar (something I inherited from my mother no doubt). It's BPA free and recyclable so if it gets worn out or chewed up I can just toss it in the recycling. Yea!



I've started journaling again (which I missed so very much) and since today was such a nice day I thought I'd take it outside. Perfect chance to try out my Cuppow. I actually really liked it, and the girls thought it was so neat. It just sits on the top of the jar and you screw the ring down like normal. It will be great for the summer to keep things out of my drink while I'm outside. The only complaint I have is that it only fits on wide-mouth jars. I would love one that fits on a smaller mouth jar so that I could use them for the girls. These wide-mouth jars are a bit too big for Kait to carry around. Does anyone know if someone makes them for small jars? I definitely would like to have a couple more though as I can see it getting a lot of use.

Birthday roof

Strange post title I know. Doesn't everyone get a new roof for their birthday? No? Oh well. That's what is happening here today on my birthday. I've never experienced a new roof being installed (do you even call it installed?) so I didn't know what to expect but I can tell you I wasn't prepared for this. And to say the girls were unprepared would be the understatement of the century.

We woke to the roofers at the door bright and early this morning and then it all went downhill. The girls were fine with the process until Kinsley started seeing the pieces falling and the noise really started. That was when the tears started falling and my poor sweet baby was terrified. Thankfully Papa came to the rescue and off they went to Nana's house for the morning. I needed to go fill out paperwork for Tuesdays wisdom teeth extraction (more birthday fun) so it worked out nicely anyway. I was gone all morning and came home just a bit ago to this...








Watch out for those nails!


The moment the van door opened you could see the uncertainty in Kinsley's eyes. It was so loud but I thought once I got her inside everything would be okay. We had new movies and yummy snacks but no. She tried really hard, bless her heart, but it wasn't long before the tears were flowing again. And I really can't blame her. It is so loud in here. And poor Kait is really trying to take a nap and just getting frustrated by the noise keeping her awake. Certainly not the way I had anticipated spending my birthday. I think we might just need to take a trip into town for a bit and get away.

But I will have these beautiful flowers waiting for me when I come home, thanks honey.

Tree of Love

One last post today for Valentine's Day. After nap we had some time we needed to fill so we made a love tree for each girl.

All you need is:

Green construction paper
Hearts
A paper to glue them onto
Scissors, pen and glue



I cut all the hearts out while the girls were napping and did about 12 for each tree. You can do as many or a few as you want.




Then when they woke up we traced their hands and arms onto the green paper to make the trunk of our tree.




Glue the "tree" to the other paper. (we used legal size to give us plenty of room for the hearts)




Then glue the heart "leaves" all around the tree.



After we glued on all the hearts the girls told me all the things they love so I could write them on their hearts.



I put their names and the year at the top of each page. I plan to do this every year, Ithink it is a nice way to see what things they value at each age.