It's all about the kids!

Dinner for tonight

2012-01-06T10:37:00.000-08:00

I am all about eating healthier and easier this new years! :) Just went grocery shopping today and we are all stocked up! Here is our dinner tonight!

Here is the chicken recipe I used tonight!
http://forkinit.blogspot.com/2010/09/crockpot-barbecue-chicken.html

Yummy biscuits!
http://forkinit.blogspot.com/2010/09/cheddar-and-herb-biscuits.html

We'll add grilled asparagus for our veggie!

Thanksgiving Shirts

2010-12-05T08:38:00.000-08:00

We made Thanksgiving shirts this year!

Advent Day 1 and 2

2010-12-05T08:32:00.000-08:00

I'm gonna try my best to keep up with this every day or two! (:

Here is the advent calendar that we are doing this year! We punched out envelopes at the IMC and I traced the numbers 1-25 and Cameron traced them. I'm not sure where I found these but we printed and laminated these great cards that have a project that we can do each day.

Day 2

I'll post the finished reindeer product tomorrow.

Here is our Santa game! We used chocolate chips.

We wrapped 25 Christmas books and each day Cam picks a book out to unwrap!

Felt Snakes

2010-09-26T12:12:00.000-07:00

I can't remember where I saw this but we made our own. I finished them after Cameron was in bed so we'll see what he thinks of them tomorrow. I think I'll bring them to school and see how the kids like them. If they use them then I'll make some to keep at school too!

Cameron picked out the ribbon and I had buttons and felt at home.

We made a large button one and small button one.

Here is our large button ones. We made one with a button on each end and one with a loop at the end.

We cut out all different kinds of felt.

Here is my small button one.

Here is the way it will look when you start making your snake. You can button as many pieces of felt that you want.

Cameron was in bed when I finished these so I'll post pictures with him working on his snakes soon. I think I'm going to bring them to school too!

Fall playdough

2010-09-21T17:09:00.000-07:00

We made playdough tonight!! Thanks Rachel for reminding me to make new playdoh! (: We didn't use any coloring; I wanted it to be more of a dough color with sprinkles of apple pie spice added in. However, I got a little carried away with the spice mix and it turned out to be a little more brown than I wanted. Oh well, it was a learning experience.

Since we made our playdoh with apple pie spice we brought out some apple supplies. We collected some sticks from outside, an apple cookie cutter, some little apples (they were REALLY hard to find, Cam also added pears and little berries too) and a pie tin. I'd really like to get a little pie tin too but I haven't been to the store. Once I do, I'll get a little pie tin to make apple and pear pies.

Cam had the idea to make a pear impression. I love when kids use their imaginations!!

Cameron was making me pies!

I LOVE making playdough!!

Check out these sunflowers!

2010-09-19T12:30:00.000-07:00

We planted sunflowers that we grew from seeds on the side of the house and they are CRAZY!!

Here's Cam standing next to one of them.

I love sunflowers! I can't wait for this one to dry out so I can bring it to school for the kids to pick the seeds! (:

Here are some other pictures of them!

I don't want Cameron to go to school full time! I love just spending time with him. Here we are being silly! (:

Friday was a beautiful day and Cameron really wanted to go in the pool!! Since we've got the heater now I let him! It was 73 degrees before the heater and 93 after.

What Cam wants for Christmas

2010-09-16T19:08:00.000-07:00

Cam is 4 and doesn't get that money does not grow on trees and you don't need EVERY SINGLE TOY THAT HE SEES!!!! I know this is a hard concept. Heck, I still want every shoe, purse, electronic, outfit, toy, etc that I see! (: He really, really, really wants this Big Foot from Fisher Price.

Yay, we really, really, really don't need Big Foot! However, I'm sure he will get it for Christmas (: Shhhh, don't tell him!

Last week Cameron wanted to buy a different toy and I told him no because he didn't have the money for it. He ran upstairs and I heard him dumping out all of his money from his Buzz Lightyear bank. He yelled from the top of the stairs that we can go now because he's got money. I went upstairs and saw quite a few coins but I knew it wouldn't be enough. We counted his money and he had about $15 (the toy he wanted was $35). I told him that he didn't have enough but he could keep saving for it. He got really excited, jumped up and ran out of the room. He came back a couple minutes later with a hand full of change, I asked him where he got the money from. He smiled and said, "I got it from Kait's room, that's where I get all of my money!" (: I smiled to myself, there was NO WAY that I was letting him know that I thought he was pretty quick to think of that. We talked about how we can't just take things from Kait's room and that we have to ask. I told him to put the money back in Kait's room and he could ask her when she came home if he could have some money from her room. He relucantly brought back the money but not before telling me that it was okay that he would just go to Anthony's room......I had to explain that he couldn't take money from ANYONE'S room. Well.....Chris heard this whole conversation, came in and told Cameron if he picked up pinecones in the backyard he would take him to get his toy. He explained that you have to work for your money. This was a good lesson if Chris hadn't made him pick up 10 pine cones for the rest of the money ($20). WOW, I'll pick up pine cones for that kind of money! (: Cam and Chris brought his change (only what was already in his bank) to the bank traded it out and Cameron got to buy his toy.

Yesterday, Cameron went to Chris and told him that he would go pick up pine cones and they could go to the store and buy Big Foot (he's $100). I intervened and told him OH NO, Big Foot is a Christmas or Birthday toy, not a pinecone picking up toy!! Chris gave me a look and said he's trying to work for his money and I promply put my foot down (STOMPED it down) and said NO WAY! Well, today Cameron kept asking me to check his bank and see how much he had (I'm not sure where he got this change from????) so I told him that we would make a chart and when he added money to his bank (this was also my way of finding out where he was getting this money. Hey, this is my 3rd kid, I'm no dummy!) we would mark it off.
Here's the chart we made to keep track of his money. It isn't fancy or anything but it serves our purpose.

I'm making Cam write his name on everything as you can see. I could only make 62 lines that's why it only goes up to $62.00, I didn't plan ahead well. Like I said this was spur of the moment.

Chris brought some change home for Cameron. He quickly had to put it in his bank.

Chicka Chicka Boom Boom

2010-09-12T10:50:00.000-07:00

I LOVE Chicka Chicka Boom Boom books!! We are going to do a lot more about Chicka Chicka Boom Boom ABC at school. I will post what we do with that over at sunshinemountainpreschool.blogspot.com. I wanted to make a Chicka Chicka Boom Boom number tree with Cameron. He hasn't wanted to make crafts much lately but I keep trying!! (: I LOVE making crafts and doing art projects with him.

I'd like to start making more handprint art projects! We made a flower tree with handprints at Stay 'n Play last spring. I'll post a picture soon!

Yesterday, we decided to make a Chicka Chicka Boom Boom Number Tree. I traced around Cameron's hands and cut out his hands out of green paper. You can always let your child try to trace and cut out their hands depending on age and how much they like cutting. We were going to use paint but it would have taken too long to dry and I had his attention for only so long!! (:

Cameron cut out his own trunk of the tree. I drew the lines and he cut it out.

We glued our trunk and leaves on the tree.

Cameron got to put "coconuts" on his tree. These are just round stickers. You could cut out construction coconuts and glue them on too. Gluing the tree trunk and leaves were enough for Cam! You can see that he put his leaves wherever he wanted on his tree. His project, he can do what he wants! (: I am a firm believer that the children should make their project the way that they want, even if I have to tie my hands behind my back because I'd like it my way. Sometimes it's hard not to fix or turn or correct the project so it looks the "right" way but if this is truly the child's art project let them do it their own way.

I could have punched out numbers but decided to go the sticker route again. I found some different number stickers and he told me the number and then put it on his tree.

Here's our finished tree! He did a GREAT job!! (:

Cam's first day of school pictures

2010-09-12T10:18:00.000-07:00

Cameron was going to come to school with me for his first day but was still sleeping. Chris took Cam's first day of school pictures. Thanks Chris!! (:

I didn't even get one at school for the first day but I'll try to get one this week. It won't be the first day but I'll still have one for the first month of school! (:

Soccer Monster

2010-09-10T18:09:00.000-07:00

This is what Cameron has been calling himself since he started soccer!

I told him not to touch the ball with his hands or he'd be electricuted. That wasn't the smartest thing that I've said but it worked (: he wouldn't touch the ball with his hands!!

This is how practice ended!! (: I wouldn't expect anything else from Cam!

Back to School

2010-09-08T19:25:00.000-07:00

It rained the first day of school for the big kids but I still needed to get a 1st day of school picture! I warned the kids the day before that I would be taking a first day of school so be prepared, they just rolled their eyes and had no choice but to agree. They know that I wouldn't stop begging until they agreed. I toldthem they might as well get used to it because I would be taking their first day of school pictures through their college years! They both shrugged their shoulders and give each other a look but I didn't care at all. I will be taking a first day of school picture for as many years as they are in school whether they like it or not!! (:

And here's the putzy little brother! Gotta love him!! (:

Pegboards

2010-03-25T14:01:00.000-07:00

We found a container of these activity beads at Goodwill 11,000 for $2.99 and could not pass it up! We made one at Stay 'n Play at school and Cameron wanted to keep them when we got home. We spent about an hour and 15 minutes making more of them. This is a great hand-eye coordination and patience activity. You have to be careful you don't knock off the ones you already put on. You can see the look of concentration! (:

Here are the ones we made so far!

Cameron is really working!

2010-03-25T13:45:00.000-07:00

Cameron is really into learning his letters and numbers right now! Mostly his letters! We got the Letter Factory movie (which I LOVE!!); I don't like Cam to watch tv but this is something I don't mind him watching! We've been working on letters a lot at school too and I think that has made a huge difference too! We wrote uppercase letters, lowercase letters and numbers on separate sheets of paper and Cameron wants me to point to the different letters and he says them. If he knows them, he gets to put a sticker on it. He asks to do this all the time which makes me smile!! I try not to go in order because I want him to be able to recognize them on their own. It's nice to see which ones he knows and which we need to work on.

Homemade pizzas

2010-02-21T17:43:00.000-08:00

We made homemade pizza tonight! Cameron had a great time. He REALLY liked putting on the cheese!!

Magic Nuddles

2010-02-21T17:17:00.000-08:00

I've been wanting to buy these but I wasn't sure if Cameron would like them. Finally I broke and decided to buy them. Cameron really enjoys them!! I'm really happy we got them. We even used them at church to make crosses. They are starch-based packing peanuts. You just wet them and they stick together. You can build anything. It showed that you could make a hat so I think we'll try that next.

The picture above is suppose to be a robot with a blaster ( I don't like him to use the word "gun") but Chris thinks it looks like a penis! Oh brother!! (:

Spiders

2010-02-03T14:10:00.000-08:00

We made spiders for snack today! We are working on Nursery Rhymes at school so we made spiders for "Little Miss Muffet".

I've been so busy with the Sunshine Mountain blog and registration at Sunshine Mountain that I haven't been able to post much here. I feel bad but I only have so much time in the day! (:

Crackin' Coconuts

2010-01-19T19:16:00.000-08:00

Cameron and I had to run to the grocery store after school today and Cameron wanted to buy a coconut. I love coconut but it is so hard to find one that isn't rotten! We had to try!! We waited until Anthony got home and he helped us crack it open.

First the boys used a screwdriver to pound into the "eyes" of the coconut and pour the milk out! Cameron kept sticking his finger under the running milk and licking it saying "MMMMM!!!!" Both boys tried the milk! They like coconut milk.

They got to pound the coconut until it cracked open. This is the BEST part! They both love hitting it with the hammer! Unfortunately the coconut wasn't good and Chris is going to take it back and we'll try another one! ): Hopefully the next one will be better! (: We had fun though!!

Dinosaurs!!

2010-01-17T16:57:00.000-08:00

We are talking about dinosaurs at school for the next two weeks and I am so excited about it! We are on letter B, if I would have thought about it better I would have done the letter D this week. I'm still learning (:

Cameron is having a great time looking at my dinosaur stuff while I am getting ready for our dinosaur unit. He got out his dinosaur sticker book and worked on it for a good 1 hour and 15 minutes today. It was great because I could get my work ready for Tuesday.

Cameron wanted to work on his sticker book again after dinner and ran in by Chris waving it in the air shouting, "Dinosaurio!!! Dinosaurio!!! That means dinosaur in spanish DAD!!!!" I can't wait to teach the rest of the kids!! I love teaching!!!

SERIOUSLY!!! I don't think this is what it's suppose to look like! It is suppose to be a dinosaur egg and it has a dinosaur inside. Anthony and Chris have been saying that it looks like elephant poop and told Cameron that it is dinosaur poop!! Now Cameron is running around saying, "Yuck, dinosaur poop!!" I had to scold Anthony and Chris because when we are at school this week I can guarantee Cameron will be calling it dinosaur poop! We are suppose to be paleontogist and dig up our dinosaur eggs and break them open to reveal a baby dinosaur. I'm not sure what I'm going to do now. I'll let you know what happens!

Snowman craft

2010-01-14T14:34:00.000-08:00

Sunshine Mountain's blog has been taking a lot more time so I haven't had time here. Today at Stay 'n Play we made snowman pictures with snowman marshmallows. I drew the snowman shape and the kids got to use glue and put the glue over my circle. After they did that they put the snowman shaped marshmallows over the glue. Cameron hasn't really wanted to do crafts lately so it was nice to be at Stay 'n Play today and have fun on a craft. ENJOY!!

Mall of America

2010-01-12T19:13:00.000-08:00

I can't believe I let Cameron go on this ride. It's sort of like The Giant Drop at Great America but not as tall (but it's pretty tall). Once he got on it, I wanted to pull him off but I didn't want to scare him from trying new things.

If you can see the first picture, Cameron wanted to talk to the boy next to him(he was probably 14 or 15) but the kid was scared SHITLESS! It was pretty funny to see Cameron looking at him and trying to talk to him but the kid wanted no part of it.

Cameron looks so little in the seat!!! I was getting a little nervous that he really wasn't really big enough for this. I thought they might have had the height sign wrong.

Good ol' Kaity took Cameron on some of the little kiddie rides and they both had a good time! (: The first picture isn't the clearest (I NEED to take a camera class!) but it shows how much fun they had. Here is Cammie having fun on the kid's bumper cars! The first couple times he got hit he was REALLY surprised!!! It was hilarous to watch his face when he got hit!
H

What we did today

2010-01-07T21:22:00.000-08:00

Chris was out snowplowing tonight and Cameron just wanted to hang on the couch and watch tv and there was NO WAY that I was having that. He really didn't want to make anything or bake anything but he got really excited when I accidentally spilled styrofoam peanuts all over the floor. He asked if he could rip them apart and I had to get dinner started so I told him he could as long as he cleaned them up afterwards. After a little while, he asked if he could make a "creation" out of them and so I got some toothpicks and let him link them together and make his "creation". He had a really fun time and I think we'll be doing this again.Here's something we made for school! I can't believe how hard it was to find mini wheel pasta. I really wanted the ones that look like little flowers to look more like snowflakes but this will have to work! I put little black dots on the back for kids that don't know their numbers yet for self-correcting. These go all the way to 20 but I think we'll just put up to 10 out in a basket and 10-20 in another basket.

Sunshine Mountain Preschool

2010-01-07T10:33:00.001-08:00

Yeah!!! I finally got our Sunshine Mountain blog set-up. Okay, almost all of it! I just need to figure out how to get the slideshow working! Now I need to get our first blog up! I'll try to get to it after naptime! (; I'm going to try to blog a couple times a week; let's hope I can keep up with both blogs!

Come and see what we've been up to at school! I'm going to try to use this as a way for parents to see what we are doing, new parents to see what we do and anyone else who wants to see some of our crafts and such! Here's the site: www.sunshinemountainpreschool.blogspot.com

ENJOY!!

Oh Christmas Tree!!!

2009-12-09T19:37:00.000-08:00

Oh Christmas tree, oh Christmas tree, how you have kept Cameron busy!!!

We made these Christmas trees during Stay and Play at school on Tuesday but Cameron wanted to add more ornaments on today. He really likes the licky/sticky paper that they use in zoo class and we finally bought some. I just need to think of things to do with them besides Cameron just licking them and licking them and licking them!!

What I did was cut out 3 pieces: one triangle and two trapezoids. I could have just traced them and had the kids cut them out but I knew we wouldn't have time. I might have Cameron make another one of them and have him cut it out this time. The kids had to figure out how to put them from big to little to make a tree. They glued them on the red paper; this took a lot of glue!!! They had to color their star yellow and glue that on the top. After that, they got to glue ornaments and put stickers on their tree. I cut out circles and squares for the ornaments. I could also have let them cut out their own ornaments. Hmm, maybe the next one I do. This was a huge gluing project which some kids loved and others didn't like getting glue on their fingers.

I LOVE how Cameron's turned out. It was totally made by him. I like letting the kids make their project how they want and never try to fix it. Sometimes, I really have to bite my tongue because I would like it to be perfect but then I remember it is perfect to him! (: Sorry the pictures are sideways! I haven't the time right now to figure out how to fix that! I'm sure it's something easy but I just need those couple minutes to figure it out!! Some day, some day!!

Christmas playdough

2009-12-02T18:56:00.000-08:00

We made Christmas playdough today! We used Christmas green food coloring from Wilson's and it turned out a beautiful green! My green always turns out such a light green when I use regular food coloring. I LOVE IT! We are going to start using Wilson's when we make playdough from now on. This was one of our things we did for advent. I made 24 stockings and put a little tag in each with something fun to do each day! I will try to post tomorrow and show you what they look like.

Whole Wheat Banana Bread - YUMMMMOOO

2009-11-27T09:07:00.000-08:00

WOW!! I haven't been on since April 09! SORRY!!! Here we go, we are gettting ready for Christmas and can't wait to share what we are doing!!

Today, Black Friday, we are making banana bread! Wait until you see this recipe!! It is awesome! There is 0 (yep, I said ZERO!!) sugar in it! You use honey!! Here's the recipe; ENJOY!!

Whole Wheat Banana Nut Bread

1/3 cup vegetable oil
1/2 cup honey
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
2 eggs
1 cup mashed bananas
1 3/4 cups whole wheat flour
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 cup hot water
1/2 cup chopped walnuts
Directions
1. Preheat oven to 325 degrees F.
2. In a large bowl, beat oil and honey together. Add eggs, and mix well. Stir in bananas and vanilla. Stir in flour and salt. Add baking soda to hot water, stir to mix, and then add to batter. Blend in chopped nuts. Spread batter into a greased 9x5 inch loaf pan.
3. Bake for 55 to 60 minutes. Cool on wire rack for 1/2 hour before slicing.
We added 1/2 c. of dark chocolate chips too!

If you make this, let me know what you think!

Organizing my life (just kidding!) just by cupboards (:

2009-04-13T16:34:00.000-07:00

I really need to be more organized! OKAY, I really want to be more organized! Well here's one way that we are trying to get organized. I was at Bunko last month and I'm not sure if this is exactly how she did it but one of the ladies organized her dinners on one of the insides of her cupboards. This is such a great idea and here's my interpretation of it. This is the second week and its working out great! I've been adding more choices as I think of them! Recipes that I haven't used in a while, I'll get rid of. I wrote where I can find the recipe on the post-it too!

Here's my other organization tool for the kitchen. It's a list of what I have in the kitchen cupboard. This is great because then I just have to look to see if I have it or if I need to buy it when I go grocery shopping. I'm hoping this will stop useless buying!!

YUMMY!!! Whole Grain Banana Bread

2009-04-10T12:30:00.000-07:00

Yum!! We made the BEST Whole Grain Banana Bread! It was so good!! We had some bananas that were past their prime and I couldn't just throw them away so we decided to make banana bread with them. I've never found a recipe that I really liked because most recipes use 2 cups of sugar and NO ONE needs that much sugar!

Cameron had a great time cutting up the bananas to put in.

He even helped mix it.
Doesn't it look yummy!!??!!
Next time, I might add nuts! I'm not really crazy about using splenda but I did.

Here's the recipe:

Whole Grain Healthy Banana Bread

3/4 cup SPLENDA® Sugar Blend
3/4 cup flax seed meal
5 ripe bananas, mashed
1/4 cup skim milk
1/4 cup low-fat sour cream
2 teaspoons egg whites
2 cups whole wheat flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
DIRECTIONS
Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. Grease and a 9x5 inch loaf pan.
In a medium bowl, mix together the sugar blend, flax meal, bananas, milk, sour cream and egg whites until well blended. Combine the flour, baking soda and salt; stir into the banana mixture until moistened. Spoon into prepared loaf pan.
Bake for 1 hour and 10 minutes in the preheated oven, or until a toothpick inserted into the crown of the loaf comes out clean.

Planting

2009-04-09T13:21:00.000-07:00

We started our plants indoors this week. We've already got some seeds growing. We put the container in the front window! Now I have to make sure the plants stay watered. I need to get one more container because I bought so many different things to grow. I LOVE gardening but sometimes I get tired of it mid-summer and forget to water and tend to them! I'm gonna try harder this summer because I think Cameron will be able to help more.

Here's the plants we have growing right now.

squash

little cherry tomatoes

green peppers

rosemary

cherry tomatoes

sweet banana peppers

ice plant (flower)

dahlia (flower)

lavender

different color peppers

Easter fun

2009-04-08T15:00:00.003-07:00

Here's a couple of projects I made for school! These were really fun to do and the kids really enjoyed them!

Cameron has a container that has rice in it that he uses to play in during the winter when its too cold to play in the sandbox. Instead of using scoops and funnels, I put little bunny and carrot erasers in it and added chopsticks for the kids to practice their fine motor skills. It was interesting to watch because some kids got it and could easily pick them up and some had a hard time figuring out how to pinch the sticks together. We told them they couldn't use their fingers to pick them up or find them or put them back. When they were finished they would even try to hid them under the rice for the next person. At our letter and shape table, we put out an egg shape. We had an egg shape traced on a piece of construction paper and the kids had to cut out the egg shape. Then they had to snip pieces of paper and put them on their egg. You can't see it in this picture but we also had the letter W at the table where the kids could draw W's on it and glue W pictures on it.The kids had a good time with our nest and egg counting. I couldn't find any bird's nests so I bought baskets from Hobby Lobby and cut the handle off to look like birds nests. Hobby Lobby had sparkly eggs so we used those as our bird's eggs. The kids had to set out the bird's nests and put a number card in each of the nests. Then they used a tweezers to pick up one of the eggs from the big nest and put the right number of eggs in the number nest.

Bunnies and Chicks

2009-04-06T17:47:00.000-07:00

We made these cute little bags for Cameron and Bella today. We decorated one like a chick and one like a bunny. We found these at Hobby Lobby and the only thing we had to do to them was glue the pieces. It was so easy and such a no brainer. Right now I am totally into no brainers. I think the kids will have a good time with these on Easter!
I feel like I'm working on so much stuff lately that I don't have time to get anything done! Oh brother!!

Spring is coming!! (I think?!?)

2009-04-05T12:03:00.002-07:00

We filled up the birdfeeder today and found some flowers starting to grow! Yay!!!!

Tulips:
Daffodils:
Hyacinths:
Cameron was getting dressed this morning and looked out the window to see if he saw Rich outside but instead of Rich he found DUCKS in our front yard!! It was fun to watch them.

Chicka Chicka Boom Boom

2009-04-03T16:41:00.000-07:00

I've been wanting to make magnetic board (aka cookie sheet) more appealing for a while and didn't know what I wanted to do. We have magnetic letters and numbers and wanted to find something fun to do with them. I found this idea somewhere on the internet. I can't remember where (sorry) but thought what a fun way to talk about letters and numbers.

We made a tree from our magnetic board to go along with the books, Chicka Chicka Boom Boom and Chicka Chicka 1 2 3 by Bill Martin Jr.

First we painted! Of course, Cameron loved that part!!

We painted one big piece of paper brown and one green. I wanted Cameron to paint the whole paper one color but he wanted to use his hands instead so I let him do that and I painted two papers. I cut a trunk out of brown and four leaves out of green. After it was assembled and glued, this is how it looked on the magnetic board (aka cookie sheet). Here's the finished project! I had the magnetic letters and numbers so here it is finished. What we did was: I lined up the alphabet in order because Cameron doesn't know all of his letters yet. If you had a child that knew his letters than you could just mix them all up. I would read a page of the book and he would put the letters or 123 on the board. Here's from the first pages. It goes like this, "A told B and B told C, I'll meet you at the top of the coconut tree." It is really cute and Cameron had fun trying to get all the letters on the top. Sorry, I can't figure out how to turn my picture. Here's the Chicka Chicka 1 2 3. We only used 1-10 though. Maybe the older he gets, we'll try higher.

Playdough

2009-04-02T18:06:00.000-07:00

We made Bella and Sunshine Mountain playdough today! For one of my niece's Christmas presents we are making her a "Playdough of the Month" and for April we made her purple playdough and for Sunshine Mountain we made pink. The pink doesn't look so hot in the picture because Cameron was ripping it apart right before I took the picture. The picture doesn't show but we also gave Bella a egg shaped "playdough" (cookie) cutter too!

Here's the recipe we used. It works AWESOME!
1 c. flour
1/2 cup salt
1 T. cooking oil
1 T. cream of tartar (if you use a little more it turns out even smoother 1 1/4-1 1/2 T)
1 c. water
Food coloring of your choice
Add-ins of your choice (i.e. spices, extracts, glitter, etc.)
Stir ingredients together well. Just measure them into the saucepan you will be using to cook the dough, but mix them well before heating up the pan. Over medium heat cook the dough, stirring constantly until it forms a ball. When it starts to get dry looking, take it off the stove. Knead, knead, knead! It will be hot to the touch but keep trying to knead it.

It was great when Cameron wanted to make purple because we could practice mixing colors! This was a really fun lesson for him to see! We used red and blue food coloring. It was hard for Cameron to squirt an exact number of squirts in! He wanted to squirt it ALL in! It turned out great and he was so impressed how the red and blue turned purple! This was fun!

DUD!!

2009-03-30T13:45:00.000-07:00

I hate kid's commericals! Cameron sees them and the toy is never as good as the commerical shows. Gadzillion 3,2,1 Bubble Blast-off was the toy that Cameron thought was gonna be great!! Boy was he wrong!! We were at Target and he saw it so we bought it. I did tell him that if its a dud that we were going to return it. Guess what!?! It was a dud!! Cameron couldn't even get it to go up in the air and when I tried I could get it to go up 7 feet and it produced about 3-5 bubbles and its going back to the store. I think we'll just stick with regular bubbles!

Easter Swap

2009-03-30T13:10:00.000-07:00

We participated in an Easter Swap sponsored by Wee Pereas. This is our first swap so Cameron doesn't exactly understand what will happen even though I've tried explaining it to him. When we were looking for things for our swap partner, he wanted everything we were picking out. He thought it was for him. Hopefully when he gets his package he'll understand a little more.

Here's what we got our swap partner, Greyson. He is 3 1/2 years old and I hope he likes what we got him.

We had to include something for the mom too. This was harder for me because I wasn't sure what to get for her. I can't figure out how to turn this picture, sorry!!

Cameron loves to open up presents so I wrapped the swap items up in colorful tissue paper. I hope Greyson likes to also.

Felt Buttons

2009-03-27T13:54:00.000-07:00

While Cameron was taking a nap today, I made him this shape felt buttoner. I'm not sure if that is really the name of it but I can't think of a better name.

I found these great big buttons at Walmart (sorry Amanda! ;) and had to find something to do with them. I have SO MUCH felt at home and decided that I would cut out shapes and make a felt board that Cameron could practice buttoning. I really want him to practice buttoning but all of this dress shirts have such little buttons that he can't do them yet so I thought this would be good practice for him.

I didn't think of taking pictures of it while I was making it but I think you can figure out how to make it. I just sewed the buttons on a stiff piece of felt and cut out different pieces of felt and slit a hole in the shape felt.

I haven't had him try it yet so I'll have to let you know if he liked it or not. Anthony's birthday party is on Sunday so I'll have to see if my little cousins (they are 4 and 5) like it. It's nice when they come over and I can experiment on them too. (:

Firestation

2009-03-27T09:57:00.000-07:00

We went to the firestation for preschool on Thursday. We had a great time!! Right when we got there, the firefighters had a call so we watched a movie for the first 20 minutes and had snack. Luckily they weren't needed so they came back pretty quick.

Cameron got to spray the hose.

He got to climb in the fire truck too! They brought the trucks outside and put the ladder up and one of the firefighters climbed the ladder and took a picture with the camera. I bet you can't find us! The firefighters were GREAT and the kids really seemed interested and (I think) some of it sunk in.

Birds, Birds

2009-03-25T07:35:00.000-07:00

We were home all day today (ahhhhhh)!! I love days like these! There is always something to do and lately I have forgotten to just slow down and enjoy. Since we were home today, we made a birdfeeder. We used an empty Motts for Tots bottle. I cut two holes in the sides using a x-acto knife and two holes up top to knot a rope in to hang it.

I let Cameron paint it. He picked the colors out. He is so into pink (its his favorite color right now). I would probably be a little worried about that if he was my first boy but I remember that Anthony use to like to wear Kait's Jane dress (from Tarzan and Jane), white gloves and the parisal and he's turned out GREAT!! It's something that he's just roll his eyes at me when I tell the story when he gets older. I LOVE teenagers!!!!!!!

He started out using a paintbrush but asked if he could fingerpaint the rest. I know it's messy but its fun!!
Here's our birdfeeder done. I hope the bright colors don't keep the birds away!
We also made multigrain cheerios birdfeeders. We used multigrain cheerios (obviously) and a pipe cleaner! This was great fine motor for Cameron but in the beginning he would string one and eat one, string one and eat one. Here's how they ended up looking like and by the next morning all the cheerios were gone. Hmmm, I hope it was the birds that ate them and not something else!!

Easter Mazes

2009-03-22T18:58:00.000-07:00

We made some mazes for St. Patricks Day and the kids really liked them so we made Easter ones too! They are laminated and the kids use a crayon to follow the maze and a piece of felt to wipe them off.

St. Patrick's Day Craft

2009-03-22T18:45:00.000-07:00

I know St. Patrick's Day is over but if I don't put this on here I'll forget what I did by next year! (:

This was so easy to make and Cameron enjoyed glueing and snipping. We even brought this to school and the kids enjoyed it too. We used strips of green paper and I let Cameron color the shamrock first. Then he snipped the paper and glued it on the shamrock.

I think it turned out cute!We also made a shamrock counting game. I made a bag out of St. Patricks Day fabric to keep the numbers in. You could also use dice and shake the dice to see which number you would mark off. If you were using a dice you would only put numbers 1-6 on the shamrocks. Cameron would pick a number out of the bag and make it to one of the numbers on the paper. He would then mark it off by putting a dot on the shamrock. This was great because not only did he work on his numbers but he also had to be extra careful to get the dot on the shamrock number. I think I'm going to try to make one of these for easter too! Here's the bag I made for it! This was fun to make! I've got a couple of other sewing projects that I need to get working on too. I'm still such a beginner! (:

Bella's tutu

2009-03-22T18:14:00.000-07:00

Wow! It's been a while! This is sad to say but Cam and I haven't been working on a lot lately. I've been working on some stuff for preschool but Cameron really hasn't been interested in doing big crafts.

I have to show you the tutu we made for my niece's 2nd birthday!

We bought tulle from Joann Fabrics. We were suppose to make this for Christmas but I never got around to finishing it so she got it for her birthday. You can make this any color you want. We made Bella's pink and yellow. I used two strips of pink for one yellow.
I folded the tulle in half and cut it 3 inches by 14 inches using my rotary cutter. I don't know how many I cut because I used as many that would make it look full.

We used a stretchy headband for the waist. I used Cameron to see if it was big enough for Bella and it would be a perfect size for any child 1 1/2-5 years old. I know that sounds like a big difference but its nice because it stretches if you need it to.

Next I sat down on the floor in the family room, turned on soap operas (it was a great excuse to watch soaps!!) and put the elastic around my leg like a garter. Take one piece of the cut tulle and slip it under the elastic and make sure the tulle has even ends and tie a double knot.

Just keep taking the tulle one by one and tie it on the elastic using a double knot until its all filled up.

Make sure you keep the knot part towards the bottom so it lays nicely. I was going to wrap a pink ribbon around the top part but it looked fine without. I wish I had a picture of Bella wearing it. My mom says she wears it everyday, all day!

Letters=Words

2009-03-13T16:08:00.000-07:00

Here's something quick we are working on and its something that you probably have. We use magnetic letters with a cookie sheet. Cameron likes using the magnets but he's not ready to make words with them yet. With him, we practice finding the letters of his name. This is a child at school that was trying to spell different words so we gave him some picture cards with words and had him "write" the word. After he did that, he could have drawn a picture of the word and written the word. This child wasn't ready for that yet but that is what I love about montessori!! You can have a child that doesn't really know the letters but is still being exposed to them by "playing" with them and when they are ready, they find letters to make words and finally they can start to write the words on paper!

Bird Feeders

2009-03-10T20:06:00.000-07:00

We made bird feeders today! I didn't realize that Cam liked peanut butter but when we were trying to make them, he kept eating the peanut butter! First we let a bagel sit out overnight to let it harden a little.
Cameron spread the peanut butter on the bagel. He's using the plastic knife we got at IKEA. I know, I know I shouldn't have let him lick the knife but I did!

I put some birdseed in a little bowl to let him sprinkle the birdseed on the peanut butter bagel. If you do this, put the bagel on a cookie sheet before you start. It keeps everything contained nicely! We didn't even have to vacuum after; anything that fell off the bagel stayed on the tray.

Try to remember to put your yarn or string on before you put the peanut butter and birdseed on. I didn't do that and it wasn't bad but it was a little messier doing it after (:Here's our birdseed bagels hanging outside! Hopefully we'll get to see some birds eating our seeds. When we were outside Cameron kept saying, "Come on birdie-birdies! I have some delicious food for you!!"

Flannelboard

2009-03-10T19:43:00.000-07:00

Here's the flannelboard that I made. I got a corkboard from Office Max and bought some flannel from Joann Fabrics. I used a staple gun to attach the flannel to the corkboard. This is a really inexpensive way to make a flannelboard.

You don't need to do anything special to make the felt stick. I normally buy my felt from Hobby Lobby, it's 5/$1. I had a lot of extra felt from different projects that I had done with felt so I decided to cut out a bunch of shapes two different sizes. With our felt shapes:

we make different things with the different shapes
I ask Cameron to find a shape and he puts it on the board
we talk about big and little
I will put up different shapes and take one down and see if he can guess the one that I took away
I will tell him to put up a certain number of a shape (ex. 3 circles or 2 big circles and 1 little circle)
There are lots of fun things you can do with felt shapes! I bet you can think of more(:

Our favorite is to try to make different pictures with our felt shapes! Like I said in my last post, I love our flannelboard!

Five Little Pizzas Felt Board Flannel Board

2009-03-08T19:12:00.000-07:00

We are talking about healthy eating. I think the best way to talk about the 5 food groups is a pizza!!! You've got your breads: crusts, tomato sauce: vegetables(I guess), cheese: dairy, veggies on top: vegetables, sausage or pepperoni: meat. There you go, all the good food groups (:

We made these pizzas to use with our flannel board. I love using our flannel board now! I'll post more flannel boards that we've done lately in a couple days. Enjoy!!

Five Little Pizzas

Five little pizzas sitting in a row, toss one up, then there was four...

No little pizzas.....

Pizza Shop

Down around the corner in the pizza shop.

There were lots of pieces of pizza with pepperoni on top

Along came (child's name) all alone

He (or She) bought one that had (# of pepperonis) pepperoni

And took it home

Note: Do this with a flannelboard removing a piece of pizza with the specified number of pepperonis with each verse.

I added this as a bonus song:

If You Want To Eat Some Pizza

Sung to: "If You're Happy and You Know It"

If you want to eat some pizza, clap your hands,(clap, clap),

If you want to eat some pizza, clap your hands, (clap, clap),

If you like bubbly cheese ,then just say "Pizza, please!"

If you want to eat some pizza, clap your hands, (clap, clap).

If you want to eat some pizza, stamp your feet,(stamp, stamp)...

If you want to eat some pizza, shout "Hooray!", ("Hooray!")...

If you want to eat some pizza, do all three, (Clap, clap, stamp, stamp, "Hooray!")

Kaitlyn is sick

2009-03-06T07:54:00.000-08:00

My poor princess doesn't have school today and of course she doesn't feel well. She really never gets sick so I think it might be that her body is FINALLY telling her that she needs a break. Kaitlyn is my type A personality and runs and runs and runs until she can't take it anymore and her body basically quits for a day or so. It stinks that today is the day that she doesn't feel good, she was suppose to sleep over at my parent's house tonight. She's sad that she doesn't get to go but she knows there will be other days. It's 55 degrees outside (which is really warm for us right now) and she has to stay in and chill. Hopefully tomorrow she'll feel better!

Feathers

2009-03-04T10:09:00.000-08:00

I saw this somewhere but I can't remember where. When I see a good idea somewhere I like to write it in a notebook and when I have time, I implement it.

We took feathers and a cup of marbles and let him "arrange" the feathers. I'd like to get some fake flowers and let him do this too. Hmmm, when summer comes I think we will grow some flowers for him to cut and make flower arrangements with. (He doesn't look too happy in the first picture, does he? I think he's tired of me always taking pictures of him.)

Shamrocks

2009-03-04T10:04:00.000-08:00

We made shamrocks today! This was such a simple project but we did get to talk about numbers and colors. I told Cameron there had to be 3 "leaves" on his shamrock.

We used page enforcers and colored them green. Cameron peeled them off and stuck them on a square piece of paper. We are making a field of shamrocks.

We have these at a table at school too. After the kids are done, we have them count them and write the numbers under them. For the kids that can't write their numbers yet, we trace the numbers under the shamrocks and let them trace the number.

Kite-Now where's the warm weather??

2009-03-04T09:51:00.000-08:00

We made a kite today! We were looking for something arty to do today and came up with a kite project. I decided that we were going to make a diamond and decorate it and we ended up turning it into a kite. First we cut out a diamond shape, then we colored it. Cameron is not really into coloring but we got these really cool watercolor crayons so he thought it was neat that he got to paint with water after he colored.

We painted our picture next. All we needed was some water and the watercolor crayons came with a paintbrush.

I let Cameron put stickers on next. He LOVES stickers and we've got quite a collection. He spent a lot of time looking through the stickers and seeing what we had.

After he was done, we added a crepe paper tail and string for a handle. Here's his finished project. He was so proud of it. It was a little hard to get it flying in the house but once we go outside he'll be able to get it to fly (okay, follow behind him) around the yard.

PIZZA PARTY!

2009-03-01T17:04:00.001-08:00

We had a pizza party on Friday! Everything we did was about pizzas. First, we read the book,"Hi, Pizza Man!" by Virginia Walter.While we were making our pizza projects, we listened to the song, "I am a pizza" by Peter Alsop. This is a great song and will get stuck in your head easily!!
We made chef's hats using construction paper and coloring with markers on them. Next we made a pizza slice that we could wear. We just cut out a paper bag like a slice and cut a head hole.

Cameron made a pizza using different shapes as the ingredients. I cut out the crust and sauce out of construction paper and cut out triangle green peppers and onions, square sausage, round pepperoni and rectangle cheese. I let Cameron cut out some of the pepperoni and snip some of the cheese. We "painted" glue on the sauce and then let Cameron put the ingredients on. Once all of his ingredients were on his pizza, he got to sprinkle oregano on his pizza. He loved the pizza smell it gave the pizza.

*We do a lot of snips here; look at the post about snipping straws(it's a new favorite activity over here). I really like to use real glue and to control how much Cameron uses we use milk caps and small paintbrushes to "paint" our glue on projects. *

I also made a felt pizza that Cameron plays with. He likes to "make" a pizza for his sister. He likes to add "anchovies" because he knows that she will overreact about them and that makes him laugh.

Cutting straws

2009-02-28T17:10:00.000-08:00

I needed green straws to make our St. Patrick's Day bracelets so I bought some at Sendiks (my new favorite grocery store!!). Cameron saw me cutting them up and wanted to try too. He sat forever cutting straws apart. Today he asked if he could cut more straws apart! When he was cutting them the other day Chris was having a heart attack. He kept telling Cameron that he had cut enough that he was cutting to many. Of course, I gave Chris the oddest look and said, "A WHOLE PACK OF 100 STRAWS COST .84 . I THINK HE CAN CUT THE WHOLE PACK IF HE WANTS!!!!" I love Chris but he just doesn't get it sometimes. This is such a great skill for Cameron and I'll let him cut as many straws as he wants!!
We also have a gallon size ziplock bag filled with straws too! Hmmmm, now I need to find out what to do with them.

Super Grover!

2009-02-27T17:36:00.000-08:00

We've decided to try to motivate Cameron into potty training. It's probably not the best idea but we've got to motivate him somehow! We've been working on a sticker chart where after he earns 10 stickers he gets a special surprise. He REALLY loves these Knex Sesame Street characters. He picked out the Super Grover for his first surprise and has earned it and loves to put it together. He seems really proud of himself that he can get these together by himself! We're now working on getting Abby Cadabby Knex. He's being a stinker because when he decides he'd like it he goes potty and gets a sticker but sometimes he says, "no, I don't feel like getting Abby Cadabby right now! Someone said that we should try setting a tiimer every 45 minutes and trying to go potty when the timer goes off. Hmmm, if only we would stay home for one whole day to try this!

Doesn't he look so proud???

Self-Awareness

2009-02-27T17:32:00.000-08:00

We talked about self-awareness today! I would name a body part and Cameron would put a sticker on that part. He seemed to really enjoy himself. In the picture he was putting a sticker on his ear, you can't see it very well!

Chickpea Chocolate Chip Cookies-Yummo!!

2009-02-25T10:54:00.000-08:00

Sorry, this is from Wednesday! I never downloaded my pictures until tonight! We talked about kindness today! We decided to make cookies to share with friends today. This was a perfect day to do this because of Ash Wednesday. Cameron is bringing his cookies he made today to church to give to his "friends" at church. Of course, we had to bring a few over to Rich, our neighbor, too!!
Here's our favorite kind of chocolate chip cookies right now! Cameron insisted on making these for his Aunt Stephanie two weeks ago! The recipe is easy and they are really, really simple!

Chocolate Chip Chickpea Cookies
Makes 24-26

1 cup firmly packed light or dark brown sugar
3/4 cup trans fat free soft tub margarine spread or butter
2 large egg whites 2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract
15 oz can chickpeas drained and rinsed
2 cups (12 ozs) mini semisweet chocolate chips
2 cups all purpose flour
1/2 cup old fashioned oats
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 teaspoon salt (I omitted this)
1. Preheat oven to 350 F.
2. In a large mixing bowl or the bowl of an electric mixer, beat the sugar and margarine with a wooden spoon or on medium speed until smooth. Beat in the egg whites or egg and vanilla, then the chickpeas and chocolate chips. Add the flour, oats, baking soda and salt and mix on low speed until a thick dough forms.
3. Drop the dough by the tablespoonful onto the baking sheet, spacing hte cookies about 1 inch apart. Flatten slightly with a fork. Bake for 11-13 minutes, do not overbake. Leave on cookie sheet to cool and then transfer onto wire rack until completely cool. Do try one in the process of cooling as the gooey chocolate is wonderful in the cookie.
4. Store in airtight container for up to 3 days.

Try them and let me know what you think!

We made these regular chocolate chip cookies with 1/2 mint chips and 1/2 chocolate chips too!

Best Chocolate Chip Cookies
1 cup butter flavored shortening
3/4 cup white sugar
3/4 cup brown sugar
2 eggs
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
2 1/4 cups all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon salt
1 cup chocolate chips 1 cup mint chips

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C). Grease cookie sheets.
In a large bowl, cream together the butter flavored shortening, brown sugar and white sugar until light and fluffy. Add the eggs one at a time, beating well with each addition, then stir in the vanilla .Combine the flour, baking soda and salt; gradually stir into the creamed mixture. Finally, fold in the chocolate chips. Drop by rounded spoonfuls onto the prepared cookie sheets.
Bake for 8 to 10 minutes in the preheated oven, until light brown. Allow cookies to cool on baking sheet for 5 minutes before removing to a wire rack to cool completely

St. Patrick's Day craft

2009-02-24T13:55:00.000-08:00

I'm trying to get together some St. Pat's day crafts for school! Here's the first one. The kids had a blast with the valentine's day bracelets we made. (I wish I had a picture of that one)

I wish I could find a black tray to put this on but right now I'll have to settle on a basket to put all the pieces on.

The Mom Song

2009-02-21T10:48:00.001-08:00

This is the greatest!!!!! I made all three of the kids (Logan, Kait and Anthony) watch this today! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ESe-AysF9mw
Logan and Kait laughed and Anthony couldn't take it. He's the child that gives me the biggest headache (which really isn't much; he just thinks he knows more than me).
Here's the kids response to it: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uJlZnPIzyLg&feature=related
The kids are so funny: Logan had to call his mom right away and have her listen to it. Kait said that it sounds just like me! I personally take that as a compliment (;

I LOVE BEING A MOM!!!!

Snow Day

2009-02-21T10:15:00.000-08:00

All of us in Wisconsin are really enjoying my nephew Logan!! He moved up here from Arizona in January and we are so happy that he is here with us. We normally have him sleep over on Saturdays but this week we had him sleep over on Friday. He's 16 (17 in May) and I love that he can just have a good time!! All of the kids are outside playing in the snow! There is nothing like some snow to make anyone be a kid again! They are helping Cameron build a fort and a snowman and they have been out there for about an hour and a half and are just having some good old fashioned fun!! I LOVE IT!! Kait went over to Grandma Irene's house to snowblow her driveway. Kait loves that Chris lets here use the snowblower now. Kaitlyn ended up doing Grandma Irene's and two neighbors! She is such a cool kid! We are truly blessed to have such wonderful children!!

Science

2009-02-19T14:23:00.001-08:00

Cam and I worked on a science experiment today! We made our pennies shiny. First I had him go through our money jar and pick out some pennies. Every penny he would pick, he would say, "is this one?" for EVERY penny he found. We mixed 2 Tbsp. vinegar with 2 tsp. salt and put our "dirty" pennies in and mixed them around. Cameron had a fun time doing this.

He didn't understand the whole concept but thought it was cool how they got "clean".

After we "cleaned" our pennies, he decided that he was gong to hide them and I had to find them. He would tell me "Abra-cadabra" and I would have to guess which container the pennies were under. As you can see by the look on his face, he thought he was pretty tricky!

Tot books

2009-02-16T13:52:00.000-08:00

We made some tot books!! We got the idea from:

http://lapbooksbycarisa.homestead.com/TotBooks.html. I'm finally getting around to posting them! They were fun to make and they are really nice to take with us when the kids have a game or I've got a meeting and Cam has to come with. I'd like to make some more but I don't think we need anymore right now until Cameron is done with these!

Here's an ocean one. I let him dip dot on the cover first! He LOVES to dip dot!

We made a Noah's Ark one: We made a Veggie Tales:

We made a Cars:

Eat This, Not That

2009-02-16T13:38:00.000-08:00

I LOVE THIS BOOK!! It tells you what foods are best for you. There is one for kids, about restaurants and grocery stores! I am trying to get our famiy to eat the right foods! There is so much crap out there and it's kind of scary when you look at what's in some of the food we eat. I'm trying not to use as much convenient foods and going back to more natural foods!

Last Valentine's Day

2009-02-16T13:33:00.001-08:00

We made these for the shut-ins for our church. They are door hangers! We mailed them out and at church on Sunday, I was told that one of the shut-ins was so excited to get it in the mail. We also sent a card with it that we marble painted on but of course, I forgot to take a picture of it before we mailed them out! Here's a bag that we marble painted for our valentine's day cards! This is kind of what they looked like.

For our buddy Rich!

2009-02-16T13:24:00.001-08:00

Every holiday we have to make our neighbor, Rich, a treat! For Valentine's Day, we made him cookies. Cameron helped frost them and put sprinkles on them. He also made him a little love bug made out of craft foam. It was fun having him make this himself. He put some of the pieces upside down but he did it himself!

Cameron brought some carnations that we had leftover from the flower sale at the middle school to Rich's wife and daughter. He was so excited to bring them flowers; he had us wrap them with a bow! He made Rich a card too! I wish I would have taken a picture of, he did a great job! He was trying to write him a message and kept saying 68133334573, 68133334573. He's trying to say our phone number instead of writing him a message and I tried to tell him that Rich would love for him to tell him Happy Valentine's day, not our phone number. Cam didn't even get the phone number right, we're now working on our number and address now!

Valentine's Day

2009-02-15T09:45:00.000-08:00

Wow! It's been a while since we've posted! I guess one of those reasons is because I can't find my favorite camera's charger (yeah, Chris is NOT happy) and I don't like the other camera. Actually as of yesterday, that camera is being fixed so I think I better go buy another charger. I know that once I do this, I will find my other one. Oh well, I guess I'll have a back-up then.

We made Bella her February playdough. For a Christmas present, we are making my niece playdough once a month with a cookie cutter to match the month and playdough too. This month we made the playdough pink with red glitter and it smelt (is that really how I spell it?) like cherries. The recipe we used is awesome!! You can find it in an old post, just look under playdough.

For our Valentine's party for Racine Family Club, we decided to make crayons and little books to go with them! We had fun making them for a while but we had to make 35 of them plus I made them for my class at school too. We made a total of 50 of them, if you figure that out it comes to 400 crayons I had to peel. Thank goodness I have kept the big kid's crayons since they were in kindergarten so we had plenty of crayons. We split them up into individual colors, I like them better than the colors mixed up. I was trying to figure out why I am so anal about things like that. After we made the crayons, I wanted to make a book to go along with them. I went to the IMC (Unified's central office) in Racine and made little heart booklets for the kids to color in them. These were really fun to make!

For Cameron's Valentines for school we made these:

They were really easy to make but fun! We used teddy grahams and gummy bears. I was surprised that Cameron didn't like gummy bears, when he tried them, he split it back out.

I love making homemade valentines! I also love having boys but I realize that with having boys that means that I can probably only make these kinds of valentines until he's in kindergarten or 1st grade. I worry that after that he won't think that they are very cool!

Cammie's birthday piratet party!

2009-02-02T14:10:00.000-08:00

For Cammie's birthday, he had a pirate theme! I LOVE planning theme parties!!! Since it was just for family, we had didn't make any games but we did make a fabric bag for my cousins and niece to take home filled with goodies from the pirate chest!

Here's my little pirate! This was my nephew's halloween costume, who is 16 now. Cameron loves to wear it around the house!

We made his invitations for his party! I told you I love planning themed parties!

We painted Camerona pirate chest! It was fun to make and he can use it to keep lots of stuff in it and remember his party too!

We used a fabric runner on the table and filled it with fun pirate items!

Christmas gifts we made this year

2009-01-31T17:53:00.000-08:00

I totally forgot to post this before. Cameron has a neighbor that he LOVES!!! Especially during the summer when he sees him all the time. We made this gift basket for him. Cameron helped make everything in there. Rich got to enjoy all sorts of yummy treats!! We had fun making the labels for each of the snacks. Cameron was a great helper with this!We also made Isabella some diapers for the doll we got her for Christmas! These were really easy and fun to make! Thanks to all the great tutorials that are on the internet! We made burp cloths to go with the diapers! This isn't the greatest picture but you get the point! We also made my mom some granola! We told her that whenever it was empty just give it back and we'll fill it up! She's already brought it back a couple times!

Lastly, we made Isabella homemade playdough for the whole year! At the beginning of each month, we bring her a new playdough and theme shaped playdough (cookie) cutter that has to do with month. For January, we brought her white playdough with iridescent glitter and a snowflake playdough cutter! We had a great time with this!! We also make a batch for preschool each month too!

I spy containers

2009-01-27T17:21:00.000-08:00

We made some really fun I spy containers! We made an I spy bottle with Racine Family Club. Cam and I hosted a kids event making these. It was soooo easy to make. We already had colored rice and added that to a water bottle. Thank goodness we had some that I saved for a craft because we don't use ANY plastic water bottles anymore. It was fun to see what everyone came up with to put in their container. We let the kids decorate the paper with dip dots before we put the items that were in our containers.

Some ideas are: crayons, pom pons, tip eraser, foamies, penny, bead, golf tees, counting bears, ribbon, you can put anything that would fit in a water bottle

We also made some out of fabric! I really like the fabric ones better and they are quieter if you are going to take it with you to church or somewhere you'd like the kids to be quiet at. I'd like to make some theme ones with the fabric too. (Someday when there is time!)

Beautiful!!

2009-01-25T18:00:00.001-08:00

You have to see these awesome quilts that my mom and aunt made! We had Cameron's birthday party on Saturday and I was completely amazed by the great gifts that were given.

My aunt made this one for Cameron. We had a pirate themed birthday party so she came up with the idea to make him a treasure hunt quilt. The second picture shows that under the X on the bottom left corner is a treasure. It was so creative!! On the back corner, it says: Cameron's treasure 1-09.

Then to my surprise (my mom never even hinted that she was making this!) my mom made Cameron a quilt with all of our family members on it. It's really nice because you can switch in and out pictures. Cameron LOVES looking at the pictures of everyone. We had to take Chris' sister, brother-in-law, niece and nephew's picture at the party to put on it because my mom didn't have a picture of them. At the bottom of the back of the quilt it says, "This quilt was lovingly created for Cameron Max Porcaro in celebration of his 3rd birthday! January 22, 2009 Love, Gramma Roxie" This is something that will treasured always!!

Happy Birthday Cammie!!

Bakin', bakin' and more bakin'

2009-01-21T09:00:00.000-08:00

I think Cam is burnt out of crafting with me! ): I LOVE making, crafting, painting, doing things with him. The only thing that is wants to do play with McDonalds disney characters t hat Chris and Cam get off of ebay and animals. He loves to play pretend, which I don't mind doing for a little while but NOT ALL DAY LONG!! I told Chris last night that I was going to open up an art studio where kids can just come in and make/play with craft and art materials. You can just move around the room and there would be easels, painting, chalkboards, playdough, every kind of art materials. I would love that; if only I had the time. Enough dreaming for now.

Today we made Buckwheat bread in the bread machine. Yum!! Even the older kids love this kind of bread. If anyone knows of another great bread machine recipe, please let me know. I'm really into my bread machine right now. Here's the recipe:
2 1/4 teaspoons active dry yeast
2 2/3 cups bread flour
3/4 cup buckwheat flour
3/4 teaspoon salt
1 1/2 tablespoons sugar
1 egg
1 egg yolk
1/4 cup sour cream
1/4 cup vegetable oil
3/4 cup water
Directions
1. Add all ingredients in the order recommended by your bread machine manufacturer.
2. Process on the bread cycle.

We also made apple cinnamon muffins. They turned out great and Cam loved them.
The last thing we made today was banana pudding. I let Cameron cut up bananas to put in it. He did a great job with the knife (it was a plastic one we got from IKEA; I love that store). Well that's been out day so far and it's only 10:30. I think we'll try to go outside and play for a while. We haven't been outside to play in about a week and a half and its finally warm enough (20 degrees is warm enough, right????)

Things we've been working on

2009-01-20T14:39:00.001-08:00

With the matching mittens we decided to also make counting mittens with snowflakes. We used these at school and they were quite a hit! This was so easy but so useful.I went to a bookmaking class for kids (I will post more about this later) and one of the books we made were accordian books. Cameron and I decided to make a numbers book with stickers. We used animal stickers (of course) and he would put the stickers on and I would write the name of the animal on the page. This was great to make and also great to look at. We "read" it everyday. I let Cam decorate the cover. He's not really into coloring (no matter how much I wish he would) but he did a little bit.

Frickin'

2009-01-15T08:42:00.000-08:00

Okay, I think it's funny and Chris, hmmmm not so much! Chris asked Cameron what he wanted for breakfast this morning and Cameron said, "Hot dog, bun, and some frickin' cheese!!" Chris turned and give me this look!! I started giggling and Chris asked me if I would think it was so funny if he said it in public. At that point, I still couldn't help not laughing but was wondering if it would be as funny if he said to someone.

Workin'

2009-01-15T08:28:00.000-08:00

We've been working, working, working! Or as Cameron would say, "we've been playing, playing, playing". It makes me laugh when I think of montessori and explaining it to people. When people come in to visit at school and we explain that we have work time, it sometimes freaks people out. We could call it play because for the kids that is what it is but with montessori they call it work time.

Here is some of the new things that we've made to work with. We made a snowflake numbers mat. The kids can use these with a friend or alone. I couldn't find any white glittery puffs so we had to use colored. The kids roll the dice and whatever number they land on they put that many snowballs on. I put stickers 1, 2, 3 on the dice. Cameron is almost 3 so we are only able to recognize those numbers.

We brought this to school and the kids really seem to enjoy this. They really enjoy finding a friend to play "work" with this. A little girl in class wanted Cameron to play with her so she took him by the hand and lead him over to it. He just adores this little girl and will do anything she asks of him but when they got there he didn't want to so he started acting like a putz. Sometimes I feel bad for him because the work at school isn't anything new for him. Since I've made or done a lot of the stuff at home, he's already seen it and worked on it at home.

We also made these really cool matching mittens. We used felt and cut out two of each color. We used them during group time. We give each child a mitten, turned on some soft music and the kids had to find their match. We've done this with other items also and they seem to understand what they are suppose to do now. In the beginning, they would hold their item so no one could see it and they could never find a match. They are really starting to have fun finding their partner and talking about their items that are the same and what is the same about them. We made 1-10 but when we put them out on the shelf we put 1-5 and 6-10 together. This way we don't overwhelm the younger ones.

Busy, busy, busy

2009-01-13T13:34:00.000-08:00

WOW! I have been having a blast! I can't get enough of making crafts and things. I thoroughly enjoy teaching preschool and having a preschooler!! We have been busy creating and Cameron is really enjoying it.

Here we made white playdough with fine glitter and mint in it. It is our playdough for January; it's suppose to look like snow. We've been playing with it every day. Yesterday, we used buttons, beads and toothpicks to make a snowman. I wish I would have taken a picture of one of Cameron's snowmen.

I'd like to start making one of these handprints every 6 months. I wish I would have thought of this when he was born. Obviously he wouldn't have been able to paint it when he was really little but I love it. I let Cameron paint the canvas with lighter colors and then when it was dry I painted his hand with a darker color. I think I am going hang them in the playroom in the basement. We had to paint on paper after we were done. Cameron LOVES painting!

It was my cousin's 4th birthday party on Saturday. I had so much fun making her some birthday gifts. She always wears handband so we made her some reverable handbands. I had to use Cam's head to measure; I should have taken a picture of him wearing them. That would have been another great picture to show his wife. We made 4 but I hadn't finished it when I took this picture.We also made her a "pocketbook", a purse; my grandma always called it a pocketbook and so does my cousin, Amy. It makes me smile everytime I hear it. I had so much fun making her this. We filled it with tissues and lipgloss.

I told you we've been busy!!

Will he forgive me for this when he gets older?

2009-01-13T13:24:00.000-08:00

I love having boys! When I was pregnant with Cameron I really, really, really wanted a girl. I wanted to do all the things that I loved with Kaitlyn and more (is that possible????!!??). Okay, I wanted to be able to do a little girl's hair (Kait would NEVER let me touch her hair). I hate to say this but was disappointed when I found out that we were having another boy but goodness gracious God definitely knows what he is doing. I couldn't have asked for neater kid and have come to realize that I LOVE HAVING BOYS!! They are truly, truly different than girls ( please don't roll your eyes, I know what you are thinking). Here's my little guy with his big sis. He had NO desire to put clothes on and insisted on singing and playing piano to "Rainbow Connection". I even have it on video. It's great! This will be a great picture to show his wife or put on his graduation invites (just kidding!). Kids, I love them! There is nothing that makes me happier than all three of my kids. They are why I was put on earth (;

BUTTER!!!!

2008-12-30T16:43:00.000-08:00

Oh my god, does anyone else have a child that wants to eat butter??? Every meal he tries to find something to put butter on. I guess it is kind of my fault, when he has toast in the morning I want him to spread his own butter. For Christmas, he got a child's butter knife. I've been really into letting him do things himself, I went to IKEA and bought all sorts of fun gadgets. Here he is spreading butter on individual pieces of green beans. Chris thinks this acceptable because he IS eating the green bean too.

Last thought when I'me looking at this picture is when is this kid gonna get out of his high chair??? He LOVES his high chair and has no desire to sit at the table with us. Oh well, if he's 13 and still wants to sit in his high chair than we've got a problem! (;

Getting it together

2008-12-30T16:31:00.000-08:00

Alright, I've been wanting a craft area for Cameron's art supplies so for Christmas I asked for a bookshelf for them. Welllllll, instead of just craft supplies it's become an area of Cam's craft/montessori items (at least some of them are). I put out stencils, sorting, color matching, jingle bell pouring, crayons, paper, colored pencils, knobbed cylinders, transferring poms, snips. It was hard to controll myself; I wanted to put so much more out there. I think that I will switch items out every month so he has new things on the shelf. This wasn't exactly what I wanted to do with the shelf but I think he'll use it more this way. HMMM, maybe I'll have to get another one just for craft items. (Chris will love that; I already put this one in the dining room :))

It's almost Christmas??!!??

2008-12-23T17:35:00.000-08:00

What! I just can't believe it! It's almost Christmas! I still feel like I have so much to do but I really don't need to get it done by Christmas. We've been busy makin' crafts and doing projects. And basketball games, school, volleyball games and just fun Christmas stuff. I haven't had to time to post much so hopefully soon I can get caught up!

We went to the Milwaukee Zoo Lunch with Santa on Sunday. It was soooo cold but we made it to the Peck Center and had a blast! (Even the big kids did but Anthony won't admit it(:) The kids got to go up and sing and Cam loved it!!

Cam even took a run to Santa. This was a surprise because at the mall Cameron wanted NOTHING to do with Santa but he liked him here.

I love this picture of the kids! Well I gotta get back to more sewing (I'm trying to make Bella, my niece and Mallory, my cousin a tutu for Christmas). I don't think we'll ever get the kids all looking at the same time.

Christmas ornaments

2008-12-04T17:00:00.000-08:00

For preschool we give the kids a present each year. It isn't anything fancy or expensive but its just a little something to tell them that we are thinking about them. This year we made them ornaments with their picture in them. Here's my sample of Cameron in Disney World (of course). We took pictures of the kids during work time. They turned out adorable.

We are also giving the kids "Magic Reindeer Food". I can't wait to do this with Cameron on Christmas Eve. I think he'll get a kick out of it. I'm hoping we will be able to put up our tree tonight. I just want to get the lights on and then over the next couple of days be able to put up the ornaments. It's so hard to get everyone in one place EVER so hopefully at some point everyone will be able to put some ornaments up together.

Grandma Irene's birthday

2008-12-01T18:56:00.000-08:00

We had Grandma Irene over for her birthday on Friday! Cameron and I made her a birthday cake (it's suppose to be a lion even though the kids thought it was Sponge Bob! }: Grandma and Cameron had a great time together! They played while I made dinner and who knows what Chris was doing!

We sang happy birthday to her and Cameron helped her blow out her candles.

Cameron really liked the cake! Can you tell??

Happy Holidays

2008-11-30T17:35:00.000-08:00

We've been working on putting up our Christmas decorations! I think we are almost all done except for the tree. I HATE putting up the lights on our tree. Every year, I end up cursing Chris out and it's not very Christmasy at all!!! Once they are put up, it's great putting the ornaments on but before then is not pretty. Here's what we've done with the fireplace area.

Porcupine Balls

2008-11-30T17:10:00.000-08:00

Isn't that the greatest name for a dinner? We made these tonight out of the Paula Deen's my first cookbook. Chris and the kids got a kick out of the name of course and so the kids started asking him what we were having for dinner the other nights of this week and he thought it was funny to start naming every other animal he could think of and add balls after it (Rhino balls). The kids found this to be hilarous! Here's the recipe:

1 lb. lean ground beef

1 1/4 c. uncooked rice

1 tsp. dried onion

1 tsp. seasoned salt

1 tsp. italian seasoning

1-14 oz. can of diced tomatores with juice

1-10 1/2 oz. can of beef broth

Turn oven to 350 degrees. Put the ground beef in a mixing bowl. Measure 1/2 c. of the rice and put it in with the meat. Add the dried onion, seasoned salt, and italian seasoning. Mix it all together. Roll it into 8-9 golfball size balls of meat. Put the rest of the rice in the bottom of the baking dish. Pouor in the tomatoes and the beef broth and stir with the spoon. Put the meat balls on top. Cover the dish tightly with foil. Bake for about 1 hour. The rice in the meatballs will have puffed up all around the meat, and your meatballs will look like little porcupines!

It was really good! We (okay I) am trying to make more homemade meals at home but it sure takes a lot of time. Oh well it's worth it.

Today we made salt dough ornaments! I love making things with Cameron. Here's the recipe for these:

1/2 c. salt

1 c. flour

1/2 c. water

Mix together and when it becomes dough knead until smooth. Use cookie cutters to make fun ornaments or gift tags. I think this year we are going to make gift tags out of them. Last year we made ornaments for everyone.

Bake at 250 degrees for 2 hours.

It was fun making these and in the next couple of days we will paint them!

Our camera

2008-11-29T12:53:00.000-08:00

THANK GOD for warranties! We were setting up our Christmas decorations and Cameron & I were wearing our Santa hats.

The camera just froze! I don't know what happened but now we have to take it into Best Buy to get it fixed! I've never used a warranty before so I hope it's worth it.

Button Turkey

2008-11-18T17:51:00.000-08:00

My button turkey turned out awesome!! I brought it to school today and my mom asked if I could keep it there. I have to sub tomorrow afternoon so I will bring it home tomorrow and show what it looks like. Thanks for the great idea! I think I'm going to make a christmas tree next and use buttons to put ornaments on of different shapes.

Epcot's Food and Wine Festival

2008-11-16T16:39:00.001-08:00

Some of you know how much I HATE cooking! It's not that I wouldn't like to but I just a) never feel like it turns out right or b)have the time. I'm starting to realize that we really need more balanced and healthy meals here! I've known all along but just need to get busy with it. Well,

I went to the greatest workshop while I was in Disney. Okay, they really weren't workshops; one was called, "Authors without borders" and it had the authors of the book, "Real food for healthy kids" and they talked about their book and I realized that I needed to really do something about this. Of course, I bought the book and had them sign it and talked to them for a while. The same day, they had a cooking demonstration and I went to that and realized that I could really do this for my family!! Thank you to the authors for showing this to me!!

Well, so far we are doing great. One of the things they said to do is have fresh veggies out before dinner and offer those if anyone is hungry. This seems to work good so far! Okay, I am SOOOOO excited! We are on our 3rd homemade meal in a row (to some of you this doesn't seem like much but for us it's a HUGE deal) and everyone is really enjoying it! Cameron ate everything I put out for- him tonight and Chris, Kait, Anthony and I had a BLAST just chit-chatting away! This is great! I made two different kinds of pasta dishes tonight (I couldn't make up my mind on which one I liked better) and everyone was so excited about them. It's amazing and I'm really excited for this winter because I think it'll be easier to get homemade meals on the table with Chris around more. Hopefully, he can keep Cam entertained while I cook. I think tonight we'll do some sort of fish dish with rice and I think corn.

I'm a big Sam's Club shopper and have many meals in the freezer still and need to get rid of them before I truly get to make everything from scratch. I will just have to have fun with side dishes while I get rid of the rest of the Sam's Club stuff.

Also, I bought some Pampered Chef items and have been using those the last 3 days too! The lady from Pampered Chef just send me an email where I can get the cranberry deep covered baker at 60 percent off (I can just see Chris shaking his head when I say that because he doesn't think I can pass up a deal and I really can't ha-ha) and send a bunch of recipes for it too so I can't wait for that to come it. Hopefully, I'll have the Sam's Club items gone by then. LOL

Wish me luck!!

2008-11-16T16:27:00.000-08:00

Alright, I'm back from Disney (I'll post about all the fun; hopefully soon!!) but I am working on a project that is so awesome I found it on The Crafty Crow. I love everyone's blog! Some are so inspiring; it makes me really excited to try new things and a lot of the instructions are so easy to follow so thank you, thank you, thank you!!! Here's what I am making right now: http://mymontessorijourney.typepad.com/my_montessori_journey/2008/11/a-little-someth.html
Wish me luck though!! I'm handstitching it with a blanket stitich. My mom taught me at church this morning how to do it on a napkin. What a lady! She can help me with everything I need. I really appreciate when she takes the time to help me with my crazy projects. She is always willing to help me in how to do it easier or even how to do it. THANKS MOM!! I hope my kids come to me the way I come to her for help. She's taught me so much (but I can ALWAYS learn more from her) and I want to be able to show my kids all the cool stuff that she knows. You might ask, why not use the sewing machine but here's the problem. I don't have any thread for the colors I need. I have little bobbins but no big ones. That's something I could use for christmas (hint-hint)!! I really only have white, teal, light yellow and tan. I guess that's the only colors I've needed so far. I'd really like to build on my sewing skills too! Right now, it's easier to handstitch because I can be by Cameron and still play with him while I do it. I'll show you the finished project when I'm done! I want it done by Tuesday so I can bring it to school; I don't know how much Cameron will play with it but I'm hoping the kids at school will like it!

What are we going to make today?!? Take 2

2008-10-04T09:48:00.000-07:00

Alright, here we go again! Cameron and I came downstairs this morning and the first thing he said, "What are we going to make today?" I had to think quickly because I hadn't planned on making anything today so we decided to make pancakes for breakfast.

Here's the recipe:

1 1/2 c. Buckwheat pancake mix

1/3 c. milk

1 c. applesauce

1 egg

1 TBSP. applesauce

1/2 c. chocolate chips, opt. (Cameron wanted these added)

Mix everything together until just blended. Let stand for 5 minutes. Cook on one side until bubbles form on the edges, then flip and cook on other side until golden brown. Serve with your favorite toppings! For thinner pancakes, add more milk. For thicker, use less milk.

For blueberry pancakes, add 1/2 c. blueberries.

For cheese, add 1 c. shredded cheddar cheese.

Thanks to my cousin Amy for introducing us to buckwheat pancake mix.

Cameron got to "taste" some of the mini chocolate chips.

We had to make some that looked like Mickey Mouse!

Yesterday, we made yummy, yummy oyster crackers!!

Here's the recipe:

1 pkg. oyster crackers

1 c. oil

1 tsp. garlic salt

1 tsp. dill weed

1 pkg. original ranch-style salad dressing

Mix all ingredients together. Bake 250 degrees for 10 minutes. Watch carefully to avoid burning.

This recipe came from the Holy Communion cookbook. The kids love these and so do we!!!

What are we going to make today?!?

2008-10-03T18:53:00.000-07:00

Alright, my little helper has just become my always wanting to help BIG helper! Don't get me wrong, I'm not complaining but sometimes a mom needs a rest. Okay, maybe I'll get my rest when I'm old and in a nursing home (maybe).

Cameron did a great job dumping the ingredients in the bowl and using the mixer (with my help, of course). Here we are making cookies (C cookies for school):

CHOCOLATE CHIP COOKIES OR BARS
1 c. butter

1/2 c. sugar

1/2 c. brown sugar

2 eggs

1 tsp. soda

1 tsp. salt

1 tsp. vanilla

2 c. flour

1 or 2 c. chocolate chips

Nuts (opt.)

Cream together first 7 ingredients. Add remaining ingredients. Drop by spoonfuls on greased cookie sheet or spread in cake pan for bars. Bake at 350 to 375 degrees for 12 to 15 minutes.

*We used mini chocolate chips and only had unsalted butter and they turned out great!!

DELISH!!

Cameron wants to make sometimes everyday, sometimes more than once a day. This has worked out okay the last couple of days because we've had to make cupcakes for Open House, C cookies for preschool, oyster crackers for Kaitlyn (Cameron said she would like them so we had to make them for her). In addition to baking, we've made craft projects for preschool. We are talking about insects and found a lot of cool things for school.

We made a Hungry Caterpillar also but I'll post that next time. I'm also going to post our oyster crackers that we make. The kids love them!!

Puzzles, Puzzles and more puzzles

2008-10-03T18:36:00.000-07:00

I really want to keep up on posting but don't have much time right now so this will be short on writing but I want to get these pictures up!

We do puzzles all the time!!! We have puzzles all over the family room. Cameron doesn't like it if we put them away until we do all of them. He likes the large floor puzzles and does a really nice job on them. You can tell he is like an only child because the kids are so much older than he is. He wants to play with someone ALL the time. I need to start trying to get him to play by himself little by little. He's not satified with me being in the same room either, he wants me to PLAY with him.

We also need to start working on cleaning up! I've realized that I just automatically start cleaning up without having him help me. We're now trying to train him to help and hopefully eventually we will start getting him to pick up on his own. Hmmm, we'll see how that works out for us.

Kaitlyn and Homecoming

2008-09-29T20:50:00.000-07:00

I have to get these pictures up of Kaitlyn!! She had homecoming at Lutheran on Saturday, September 20th. She looked so grown up!! I love this girl!!!!

Buzz Lightyear makes homemade playdough

2008-09-29T15:20:00.000-07:00

Cam and I made playdough this morning! Yes, he's wearing a Buzz Lightyear costume. We spent about an hour this morning talking about what costume he wants for halloween and we still have picked one. This is one of his dress-up costumes and loves to wear it everywhere. Chris even let him wear it to the zoo.

I love making things with him now. I love babies the best but it's so fun when they can start helping. I know that I could have made it much faster and cleaner but it's nice when we can slow down and do things like this!

Play Dough Recipe
4 cups flour
1 cup salt
4 cups water
4 tablespoons oil
1/2 cup cream of tartar

Mix all ingredients in a sauce pan. Cook and stir over low/medium heat until play dough is completely formed and no longer sticky. Allow to cool slightly before storing in an air tight container or zip lock bag.

*You can use 1/2 and 1/2 of baking soda and baking powder if you want. It turns out the same*

This was a new trick that I learned today and it's really nice. Cream of tartar can be expensive because you can only get it in tiny containers so its much cheaper to make it with the baking soda and powder.

Here we are playing with our new playdough!

Dinner at Shogun

2008-09-27T18:57:00.000-07:00

We had a great time at Shogun tonight for dinner. This is a Hibachi restaurant in Racine and the kids love it there! Alright, Cameron doesn't like the fire part but tonight he didn't even mind it!! It is SO expensive but the kids really have fun and I know that when they get older this is one of the things that the kids will remember! We all have those memories of when we were children and we want our kids to have these memories too!

I remember all family vacation we would take with my nana and uncle. Every year the week after the 4th of July we would go on a week vacation with my nana and uncle! I loved staying in the same room as my nana and uncle! We've gone to LaCrosse, Mackinaw Island, Michigan, even to Pennsylvania! It's something I loved (even if there was always one MAJOR fight between somebody, that part I didn't enjoy) and want my kids to have those memories without the arguing (:

Anyways, back to my Shogun memory! The kids had a blast trying to catch the vegetables!! Here they are all trying to catch zucchini! Anthony was the fastest to get it but Kait caught it too (after a few tries) and even Cameron got a piece in his mouth (alright, they told him to close his eyes and open his mouth and Andy put it in his mouth and we all cheered and clapped!). Even Chris and I tried. Okay, Chris did it right away and I never did! I tried but it never happened.

Trip to St. Louis

2008-09-24T18:42:00.000-07:00

I never shared about our wonderful trip to St. Louis! It was planned so that Chris and the boys could go to the Rams vs. Giants game but it turned into so much more than that!! It turned into one of my favorite and best trips we've had! It was relaxing (I guess for our family we'd call it relaxing) and just a pleasant time!! There was no yelling or arguing about ANYTHING! I'm reading the best books right now but that's a whole other post.

We took a trip to the St. Louis Zoo. What a beautiful zoo! We had a blast there and saw lots of cool animals! We even saw a dinosaur!!

The kids showed Cam how to act funny! He really didn't understand what and why they were doing what they were doing.

We went to a restaurant Saturday night that use to be owned by the Cardinals announcer but he died. Chris found out that the management of the Giants was going to be there later that night. Of course, Chris had to see who was going to be there so he took the other kids back for dessert so he could see who was there. Anthony got his cast signed by a Giants player that now is a coach. It was cool to see the kids and Chris get excited and enjoy the same thing. I love the kind of teenagers the kids are!!! They are so special and I feel so close to them. I hope we have the same kind of bond with Cam when he's a teen that we do with the other two.

I love this picture!!! It shows what a stinker this little brother is and how good the older kids are with him!!

We went to the St. Louis Children's Museum too! The kids had fun there too. It doesn't matter how old they are!!

We even saw Sacagawea!! What we make our kids do!!! His first girlfriend will love to see these pictures!!

spending time with my Jelly!!

2008-09-22T11:22:00.000-07:00

I love doing fun projects with the kids! Okay the big ones aren't as excited with projects but I luckily Cam still loves to do them!! I don't know what I'll do once Cameron gets older and doesn't want to do projects with me! I guess I'll have to find some other little child to do them with me.

Here's Cameron and I at the beach collecting rocks to make a matching game.

Okay, we're not doing so hot collecting the rocks, we'd much rather throw them in the water. This was fine because there were plenty of rocks!

We brought the rocks home and put stickers on one side and then turned them over and made a matching game with them! Cameron really liked it (we used animal stickers). We also made one with different colored butterflies too!

The boys first day of school

2008-09-10T13:51:00.000-07:00

Jeez!! Sometimes I just don't think!! I totally forgot to post Anthony's first day of school pics! I know that its been 1 week already since school started but better late than never!

Of course I made Chris take Tally for a walk so he could get Anthony's first day of school picture. Anthony didn't mind it as much as Kait but I think that's because he idolizes Chris so much so he doesn't care what Chris would do!! He's such a doll!! I love this kid!!!

Here's Cam's first day of preschool picture! This was the best I could do, he would not stand still! He had it after his first day. He did great but it was a long time for he. He had to sit for both sessions and by the end he was DONE!

End of summer?

2008-09-10T13:24:00.000-07:00

I don't want the summer to end yet!! I don't think I ever want summer to end. I'm sure Chris has a different feeling, by now he's ready for a break from lawns. He loves to be home in the winter hanging out with Cameron (and I think he likes me too!). Here are some of the reasons that I don't want summer to end.

1. I love to take Cameron outside to play in the backyard with NO COAT and he LOVES to play in the water.

2. I love the kids being home!! They came with to Green Meadows and did lots of other things with us too!!

3. Anthony's baseball games

4. Chris' softball games

5. Trips to the Zoo especially feeding Bo!!

6. Fun events outside with Racine Family Club!

7. Trips to the beach. We went to the beach to collect rocks today and Cameron even put his feet in the water! These are things that I love, we didn't plan on going to the beach but spontenously (sp) went today and had a BLAST!!! I love being able to just go and follow whatever we want to do for the day!!

Mets baseball - Porcaro's favorite pastime

2008-09-07T11:07:00.000-07:00

Here's my boys waiting for the players! Cameron was more interested in seeing what was going everywhere but the field! We had a great time going to the games: I love watching baseball. Luckily the Mets won all three games so it was a nice time.

Here are more pictures of Cameron at the games! You can SOOOO tell he's the baby of the family and can be a stinker!!!

I also tried to get a nice family picture at the game of Chris and the older two and look who stole the show! He wasn't even suppose to be in the picture.

Labor Day Party

2008-08-31T18:20:00.000-07:00

Today Cameron and I made cookies and taco salad to bring to my parents. It was SO much fun. I'm mad that I didn't get any pictures of him in the garden or cutting up the tomato and red pepper. He helped put the cookies on the tray, rip the lettuce up and cut up the tomato and red pepper for our taco salad. It's so fun and important to include him in day to day activities. I know it can be easier to do it myself but it's so much more fun to do it with him.

We went to my parents today for a Labor Day party!! We had a good time and got to see family. I felt bad for Anthony because he couldn't go swimming and he LOVES to swim at my parent's house. Here's Cam and Papa having fun in the pool:

We brought Cameron's little pool with also. My parents only have a small pool that would never fit 4 kids ages 5,3,2,1 in it so I thought I should bring his blowup pool and I'm really happy that I did. Sometimes my parents forget about the bigger kids. They realize things when Bella (my niece) is old enough to need or want it but not in time for Cameron's age to enjoy it. A 3 foot pool is not okay to fit a 1 and 2 year old plus my cousin's 3 and 5 year old but once Bella is too little for it they'll realize it }: I love my parents but sometimes they just don't think beyond my sister, brother-in-law and niece. I feel bad because I now know how my sister-in-law must have felt with my niece and nephew and our kids. Our kids were always given more attention, things and time and now it's totally the same way with my sister and niece and our family. It's sad because I feel my parents miss out on a lot of things especially with Cameron because they never ask to spend time with him or have him come over. They are always busy with my sister and niece and don't think about us. It's not the same but it helps when we've got some great people at church and school who just ENJOY Cameron and the kids and us!! It's not the same as family but it's what we've got!! Alright enough of my rant!! I'm not dwelling(at least for now) and I've got one more pic to show. He was so happy when he got his animal set!!

Kait's first day of school

2008-08-23T14:19:00.000-07:00

Well my baby is officially growing up (but she's still my baby!!)

Here's Kait at the bus stop her first day of high school. She's so sweet!! The night before her first day I asked her if Chris could walk her to the bus, at first she said NO but then she said that it would be okay if he just took Tally for a walk and stopped for a minute. I love that she doesn't mind that we are around, sort of.

There she is getting on the bus. I know I'm so lame sometimes but I just love these kids SO MUCH!!!! Poor girl, I'll probably be there taking pictures when she's walking to her first classes in college.

Paint Party

2008-08-23T14:15:00.000-07:00

Sorry for all the posts on one day but I'm playing catch up.

Cameron went to a paint party this morning and had a blast, can't you tell?

Simple things in life

2008-08-23T14:01:00.000-07:00

I've told people this before but if I could I would live in the 1800's. Life was SO much simpler. We had a blast this morning. We were playing with chalk on the driveway and Cameron found a ladybug on the driveway. He asked me to help him pick it up and we spent the next 45 minutes examing, playing, poking, watching this ladybug.

We had to even draw a picture of a ladybug on the driveway!

I'm hanging this picture everywhere! It reminds me that "kids just need our love and attention"

My little helper (& the kids come home tomorrow!)

2008-08-07T18:45:00.000-07:00

I keep singing to myself! The kids come home tomorrow, the kids come home tomorrow! and doing a little dance! I couldn't be happier!!!

It is so easy just to do things myself!! But....WHAT'S THE FUN OF THAT!!! We're making I spy bottles with water bottles. I know I never do everything at one time...........sooooooooo we started with coloring the rice today. I let Cam put the rubbing alcohol and food coloring in the first one and the rubbing alcohol practically took his breath away from the smell that after the first one, I put the rubbing alcohol in the rest (holy run-on sentence, GEEZ). I'd love to fix it but I only have a minute before the little man wants to go to bed. That's as far as we got with our I spy bottles. Now I have to think of things to put it. I've got a rubberband, button, piece of crayon, hmmmmm what else. I've got tonight to think of more. Gotta get to bed, night!