Snowing

 I knew the playroom was a mess, but when I walked from the living room to the kitchen and saw this I was floored. The took an entire bucket of foam letters and it was all over the floor. I asked why and Ashley said, "They needed snow".  They were from my stove to the doll house.  They were very good and picked them all up, but then I kept finding them even in my kitchen sink.

Letter A week

I think we had a fun week.

Monday is A is for Ashley and had her party

Tuesday is Letter A day

We practice writing the letter. Ashley matched the letter A  crawled through a tunnel to find an a word. Rachel learned the am family, and the sight word am and then read "Pam and Sam"

 Wednesday- A is for Ants

We did preschool on a picnic blanket and had lunch. We read two books during lunch; One Hundred Hungry Ants and The Magic School Bus: Ants in Pants

Ashley shooing away ants

Game: Roll and Build an Ant

Craft: Ants in Pants

 Thursday: A is for Apples

Apple Picking

We did preschool at the orchard.

We read a book Apples to Applesauce and made our own.

Game: Rotten Apples

"Win Rachel, Win Rachel"

 Friday- A is for Alien

We started by reading books; The Way Back Home, Aliens in Underpants (Rachel decided she likes aliens in this book), and then You Can't Eat Princesses!

During naptime aliens invaded the girls underpants

the girls followed the trail outside to find aliens

and got the aliens to surrender.

 That night after Ashley's birthday dinner we had a family movie night and watched Lilo and Stitch.

at home preschool change

So for the last year I've tried to do a themed preschool morning once a week for the girls. It's not as easy to plan things for two different ages but we made it work and the girls love it. We had thought about putting Rachel into an actual preschool this year since most of her friends started kindergarten but with the current circumstance that was out of the question.

The other concern is that we're home a lot. The girls just play and I'm not involved unless they can't resolve an issue, someone gets hurt or they want food. So I wanted to find a way to be more involved daily. So our new weekly preschool is a letter a week. The first day we'll practice writing the letter (Rachel knows them but needs work writing on lined paper and Ashley has a desire to learn them), for Rachel sight words and word families and for Ashley the sound the letter makes.  Then the rest of the week will be a different theme starting with the letter and keeping it shorter. Some I will probably still get carried away but I wanted something fun to brighten each day.

This was our first week and we did letter reviews. Monday was labor day so we took it off (already days off). Tuesday we read Chicka Chicka Boom Boom and made our own tree, Wednesday we had an letter egg hunt (I have Easter eggs with the top a capital letter and the bottom a lowercase), Thursday we read a couple ABC books and then played letter bingo- Ashley won, and Friday we read Dogs Alphabet Adventure and practiced spelling their names with foam letters. Ashley actually managed to do it without help once. Then at dinner when I asked her how to so she could show daddy she said, A, B,C then I stopped her and said that's the abc's how do you spell your name and we sang the song I taught her and she spelled it like this A-S-H-I-E-Y. Close. We'll keep working on that.

I didn't take any pictures this week but I'll get back into the routine of that too.  Next week the letter A.

What a week

It's been quite a week. I started my 4th triology (that doesn't have the last book out) in the past month. Camp is official over after Wed. night's camp recap/celebration (still need a post about camp). My 9 year streak of not being pulled over ended Thursday- no ticket just a written warning which is really good since I was doing probably 45 in a 25. Friday the girls got free ice cream sundaes that another table bought at Red Robin. We then put the girls in the same room. They both were finally asleep around 10:30pm. Ashley was up at 6:30am and Rachel was up at 7am. Wish me luck today I might have some very fussy girls.

4th year hike

Happy Birthday Aunt Donna

My Aunt Donna and Uncle John flew out of Las Vegas after dropping their son off at school in Arizona, I believe, so they could see us. :)  That same day was my Aunt's birthday so we had to celebrate it. Rachel asked how old she was and then proceeded to tell her that we couldn't fit that many candles on the cake! I love little kids and their uncensored comments. The funny thing is that she's not old. After singing the girls assisted in blowing out the candle.

 We had a nice visit. The girls got to really meet them for the first time, since the last time we were in Jersey to visit was over 4 years ago. Before bed we needed to get at least one picture since we don't know the next time we'll see them but I have a feeling it'll be sooner than 4 years with my cousin living closer to us than to them. 

 As nice as a posed picture is my girls and husband can't resist a pillow fight. 

 Thanks for making time for us to come and visit and we hope you had a nice birthday!

PB&J

As I set out the lunch stuff to make the girls a sandwich I had it arranged just as shown in the picture (I actually paused making lunch to take it) when I realized that their choose in pb&j are as different as their personalities. Rachel is artsy with very good find motor skills. Right now she's also defiant towards us but will make Ashley happy. Ashley has to move around and loves the large motor skill activities unless she's cuddling. She loves to be tickled and to make everyone but Rachel happy. Rachel is all torso while Ashley is all legs. They may be different but they are still similar. Just like the ingredients to the sandwich are different yet still pb&j.