Because there are enough in our backyard to make a few more wreaths.
These two boys pretended they were squirrels and collected a whole bunch for me.
Then Carson helped me glue them on to a wreath. After a brief encounter with some hot glue, he decided it would be best if his job was to hand me each acorn and re-fill the glue sticks when we got low.
Our big floor caterpillar. We also spread the numbers around the floor and played the game where the kids run to the number I call out.
Coloring pages. Clever Olive made a pattern with her caterpillar. Carson wasn't too happy about this, though, since my instructions were to color each circle a different color. He takes things pretty seriously sometimes.
This is what Everett does during pre school.
And this. (Runs up to the camera saying, "CHEESE!!")
Color matching puzzles.
Lacing card.
They worked together to put these numbers in order from 1 to 20.
Lucky for these kids, C is for Cookie. Although they did have to eat Carrots while they waited for the Cookies to bake.
Carson's clothespin caterpillar. He is just now understanding the pattern thing.
And finally, this is a different day, when Carson was doing these cute little Dick and Jane workbooks. He finally figured out how to hold the pencil the right way and is getting much better at tracing!
I don't know where this idea came from the other day, but I spontaneously decided to spend the afternoon making empanadas. They surprisingly turned out great! Even the smell took me back to Chile. To me, the filling tasted perfectly authentic, but next time I will try a different recipe for the dough. The Chilean salad made it complete. Mmmmmm.
The digger right in our front yard means we can stop paying for water to gush out and go nowhere. It also meant the boys had a really fun morning. I should have spent the time cleaning or something, but I will admit, I spent a fair amount of time at the window laughing at these cute boys.
This is where I post a million pictures from over the summer, so I can relieve myself of the guilt of not documenting some of the events in the boys' lives. Confession: I do not scrapbook, or do anything like it. I do faithfully write in journals for each child, but this blog will have to do for picture documentation.
Father's Day weekend: we took Daddy to the batting cages.
We spent a good amount of time babysitting one of our favorite families, the Blackham's. As you can tell, their house is one of Carson's favorite places to be.
These kids are a delight to babysit!
Fourth of July: a quick trip to D.C. for some extended family time, including meeting Tim, who at that time was a soon-to-be member of our family.
Rick takes a little snooze, Grandpa Sam style.
We visited Frying Pan Park.
With cute cousins.
The night we flew back from Utah, we spontaneously decided to stay at a hotel in Charotte and go to IKEA the next day, instead of driving home that night. That night in the hotel, with pizza, was such a fun little family time!
Wrestling on the hotel bed.
Everett expresses an opinion about something.
More wrestling.
A storytime back at home.
A little date to the Raleigh temple.
I think this was Labor Day? We tagged along with Rick and his Scouts for a hike. Hiking in backpacks received rave reviews from Carson; Everett cried the whole time, and I had to carry him in my arms for the last mile!
The whole group, with a nice smudge on the camera lens.
Stone Mountain.
Another trip to VA for the big wedding!! The boys and I took Amtrak, and after we missed our train, the trip the next day was pretty exciting, especially for Carson. I promised him that if he didn't cry or wet his pants for the whole 6-hour train ride, he could go see Pappy's job site when we got there. He loved seeing the construction, of course. Too bad I can't bargain like that with Everett yet!
The twins turned 3!
Everett hearts strollers and babies.
The bridal shower. Ashley's wedding really was the wedding of the century.
Some of the best days are when dinner is ready and the house is tidy just in time to run around in the front yard for a few minutes while waiting for Daddy to come home.
I sure am lucky to have a husband who is so good at playing with his boys. He is the perfect dad for these two little guys.
Oh yeah, and I'm sure he will be for the new little guy/girl too. I thought a belly shot was in order, since I've pretty much ignored this pregnancy on my blog. This picture was taken at 20 weeks. Rick was working hard to put together new dressers and reorganizing our bedroom while I admired myself in the mirror. See, he really is pretty close to perfect.
So, Carson is still only two this fall, which means I didn't want to do a full-on pre-school with him yet. But I knew he would enjoy a few more organized activities in our days, so a friend and I are doing a little "mini" preschool together, just once a week. We are using the Letter of the Week curriculum from Confessions of a Homeschooler. He and his friend Olive love it so far! It's mostly review, since they are already familiar with the letters and their sounds, but they really enjoy the activities. So, here is my report on the first day: letter A!
The happy students! My favorite part was teaching them the Pledge of Allegiance at the start of the "school day."
First up: one kid traced the A's with a dry erase marker while the other completed the letter A shapes in Cheerios. Then they switched. Olive sure is good at writing! Between each activity, we sang, "The A says Ah, the A says Ah, every letter makes a sound; the A says Ah."
Then we did some number recognition practice. They had to run to the number that I called out and stomp on the ants. This was a little too easy, so I started having them spell out the number that they were on.
Can you make the letter "A" shape with your body??
Next up: sorting ants by size, and then some shapes puzzles. Again, I was surprised how easy this was for them.
For snack, we had Apples, and made them into Ants on a log. We talked about what else starts with A while we ate.
Quick break to watch the trash truck pick up our garbage: an exciting part of every Wednesday!
This graphing activity was the one they had a hard time understanding. You're supposed to graph the number of ants you have on your card, but they both just wanted to fill all the squares. With a little guidance though, they got it.
To finish the day, we read an Aurthur book and found the words in it that started with "A." Then we went on a scavenger hunt to find the "A" things I had hidden around the room. It was a fun morning!
