Camping- Preschool

In preparation of the family backyard campout Mike would like to have I themed the girls preschool around camping. We set up a tent in the house, tried out the new sleeping bags, made a campfire, read some books, used marshmallows on a graph to see how much equipment we had (based on rolling a die), put together the correct oar to boat, fished by placing the right color m&m on a fish(for Rachel it was mixing colors), learned to use a ruler by measuring fish, but mostly just played in the tent and got ready for Daddy to come home.

Kids Art Club

Moms Club has a monthly Kids Art Club and this month they made really neat name boards for their rooms out of fallish items. They came out really good.

Good Morning

This is what I found one morning after hearing the girls awake.

Cats

Nope not the play, but our preschool lesson was on cats.

Rachel helping Ashley find mittens that the little kittens lost

Playing cat and mouse game

Making yarn cats

Below are two videos of the girls going through the cat obstacle course.

Halloween - lots of pictures

Sunday Evening

Scooping Out the Pumpkin
Ashley was hesitant

Finally was brave

Then wanted it off!

Rachel however thinks it's great!


Switched to Potato Head Pumpkins for Ashley
One eyed bear
Rachel's cute monster

Trying on their pumpkin faces

Then it was shove as many on a pumpkin as possible and since then have been made into several different looking creatures.

Carving the Pumpkin with Rachel
(Ashley was now in bed, Rachel choose the cat design)Lately Rachel's becoming little Miss Personality

Showing off the Jack O' Lantern

Monday Night

Halloween Costumes

Belle

Flower Fairy self-named Tinkerbelle

My Girls

Trick or Treating

They were really brave, no matter how the house was decorated or what the costumed person handing out the candy looked like they were determined to get their share.
Ashely would stand there and just hold her basket out even after she got one peice as if to say "keep it coming" She had the loudest clearest "Trick or Treat" out of all the kids in our little group. She would let go of my hand and run to the door and knock waiting for no one else.

Rachel would get her piece of candy and then see the other options and say, "Oh I like that kind, and can I try that one" They scored big. We had to say okay that's enough, just one, you don't need a handful. No more. We only did a block and their buckets were full.

I had Mike bring the candy we would have been handing out at home with us and had a mobile trick or treat bucket. And low and behold we came home left a bucket outside with candy in it and someone took the whole bucket. Not just all the candy but the bucket too!

It was fun to have the girls go with friends. They had a blast and even this morning kept saying "remember when we had fun trick or treating?" yes. "When can we do that again?" "Next year" "UH that's a long time" Yes Yes it is.

Puffy Paint Pumpkins

While looking for preschool lesson ideas I found a blog that has fun ideas to use for our own little preschool stuff. The idea I'm borrowing is to paint a moon shape with puffy paint (the links to both website are at the bottom)







I thought it would be really cute to do pumpkins that way so with half an hour before having to leave I decided we were going to make some puffy paint pumpkins. The girls thought it was really cool that it bubbled up.



Mommy and Me Book Club
Microwave Puffy Paint-Play at Home Mom

34 mins and 59 secs

That was time for my first 5K! I did it I ran the whole thing. Our ward has an annual Chicks on the Run 5K or 1 mile walk promoting healthy living. So about 7 weeks ago I started running with a couple ladies at 5:30am 3 times a week. We're home before dawn. We've been averaging closer to 40 mins and our best I think had been 37 mins but not today.

Mike woke the girls up and brought them over to the church. He got to the finish line just as I was. It was nice to have his support. He did take a picture of me cooling down so none of the pictures were blog-worthy but it's there anyway because for me this is a momentous occasion. We celebrated with donuts!

I would never have pictured myself doing this; I had no desire. But it did feel good to have accomplished something.

I've been trying to decide if I'll keep running. The thought of running makes me want to say no, but when I'm up and start doing it I'm okay with it, half way through our run I never want to do it again, but then I finish and feel good. By no means do I feel the need to run further, I do not have ambitions of a 10K, 1/2 or full marathon. But our stake does have a turkey trot on Thanksgiving so I think I'll keep going and run that. We'll see if I can at least keep that same time, but it's getting colder we may discover I'm a fair weather fan of this exercise- but that's nothing new just ask my taebo and other fitness things collecting dust in my house.