Crazy Busy

Wow! These last few weeks have been crazy busy.  Since Charlie started first grade back in August life has been a whirl-wind.  We have had all the usual school stuff going on plus Brayden started preschool.  Brayden is in 4 year old preschool and I am so lucky to be his teacher right now.  I am filling in for a teacher that is on medical leave.  I am loving every minute of it.  I have the sweetest kids in my class and we are having so much fun.  So along with all the school stuff we have going on the boys began fall baseball and the new year of Team Kids at church has begun and is in full swing on Wednesdays nights.  So as you can tell we are just busy, busy, busy around here.

Some preschool activities

 

 

We have painted sun flowers using a paint stick for the stem, green construction paper leaves, and paper plates for the flower part with real sun flower seeds in the middle.  We made the letter S snakes and decorated them with foam glittery shapes for form an ab pattern.  We painted apples and  had fun with rhythm sticks.  We also had an apple taste test and graphed our results.  Our graph ended up all equal with 4 children liking each type of apple we tried the best.   We made little people to look like us to go with our Me I am special unit and we made name puzzles to go under our people.  We made robots with rectangles to go with the letter Rr.  We made the best smelling acorns using brown fingerpaint and cinnamon.  We played with shaving cream and practiced witing our names and drawing our families.  We also used the chalk-board easel to draw fun pictures on.  We began our year by reading The Kissing Hand.  We did several activities with this story and our favorite one was making a Chester the raccoon puppet.  We used our hands to make Chester's mask.

 

Family Activities

 

 Building with blocks.

Candy card for Grandparents day for Papaw and Grandma.

 

Teaching Grandma how to play the Leapster Explorer.

 

Dressing up and playing at home

 

Charlie's school Fall carnival.  Charlie won the cake walk while wearing his silly glasses.  They must be lucky glasses.

 

Hanging out and having fun with Papaw!!

 Lots of fun at the fall carnival!!!!

 



 Fall Baseball  Go Red Sox!!

 

 

Charlie's Star Wars Drawing

 

 

So as you can see life is crazy busy right now.  I would not trade it for anything--well maybe a little more sleep. I am so blessed to be living this wonderful life that I am living and I thank God daily for it.

First Grade

We had a wonderful summer.  We soaked in every bit of it that we could and we soaked it up until the very last minute.  But like all good things it had to end.   With a big sigh and a little sadness we said goodbye to summer and hello to first grade.   Charlie was so excited to find out that his two best buds from kindergarten were in his class.  When I told him I thought he was going to jump out of his skin.  He was jumping up and down and yelling---YES!!!!  He was so excited in fact that he was still wide awake at 12:30 am on the night before meet the teacher day.  Watching him be so crazy excited was priceless!!!!

 

 

Airplanes and tie-dye

On our last two days before sending Charlie off to first greade we did two very fun projects.  The boys loved both of them and had lots of fun making them.

The first one was making a "tie dyed" shirt.  We used Sharpie markers, and rubbing alcohol and washed white t-shirts.  We used a rubber band to secure the shirts over a plastic cup.  Brayden made designs and just colored on his shirt while Charlie wanted to draw Cars and then color the background around the cars.  Then they use an eye dropper to drop the alcohol on the shirt.  Brayden LOVED watching the colors run and mix together.  Charlies ran some but you can still make out the cars that he drew.

 Brayden's shirt



Charlie's shirt

After they boys finished their shirts we put them in the dryer for about 20 minutes to let the colors set.

Our second project was making these neat airplanes.   We took drinking straws, index cards, and tape and made these amazing little planes.  We took index cards and cut three 1 inch by 5 inch strips.  The boys then taped two of the strips together long ways.  Then they taped the ends together to form a circle.  The last strip they taped the ends together to form a second circle.  Then they taped one circle to each end of the straw with the straw going through the circles.  Then the planes were ready to fly.

 Finished plane

The boys could not wait for daddy to get home to show him their planes.

Dad was even impressed at how well the planes flew!!



9th and 10th weeks of summer

Our last two weeks of summer vacation have been totally awesome.  We have had so much fun.  I can't believe that we are down to our last two days.  I have learned how to let go and not stress this summer.  I finally just enjoyed everything--  If there were dishes in the sink--I let it go, If there was laundry to do--- I let it go and we just had fun making memories together.  I am so thankful for all the time and fun we have had with each other.  I hate to see it end but I know we have more new memories to make.

We took a last minute spur of the moment trip to Stone Mountain Georgia.  Such a cool and beautiful place.

 On top of the ROCK!!

 Train ride around Stone Mountain

 Lazer show and fireworks

 There was a big barn with slides and foam balls to shoot.  It was a cool 4 story play place with trampoline floors and tons of slides.  The boy LOVED it!!

 Ropes course and "zip line"

 Geyser water tower--  Lots of wet, wet fun!

 Sweet hubs cooling off in the shade.

This was a perfect get-away.  We had so much fun.

Marble Run

Yes he is standing on the table!!!  HA!

Boys will be boys--  even the big ones--

Wrestling with Daddy

Family fun at Papaw and Grandma's pool

Chuckie Cheese fun

Rescued animals house of Asheville

 Fun with Papaw and Grandma

Creative play--  puppet shows and Vet office

One last picnic on the deck before summer is over

Finally saw the neighbor bear.  

Summer--Thank you for relaxed no schedule days, thank you for helping me learn to not stress,

thank you for family time and memories that we will treasure for a lifetime. 

Summer we love you and we are really going to miss you.