Pepperoni!

Last week was a very, very good week. Isaac finished up his two-year program at the local technical college, and The Boy finished kindergarten. (If you're interested, you can find more info on the home-kindergarten thing on one of my other blogs, Pie for Breakfast.)

So we had ourselves a little homemade-pizza party.



Whole-wheat pizza, anyone?


Pepperoni always gets a thumbs up from The Boy. Pizza was accompanied by Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs, and we followed up with some ice cream. We know how to party.

Now, we're on to a new job and first grade. And I'm totally not freaking out about it. Nope. Not at all.

Bedtime Means Storytime

Bedtime story time has been a tradition at our house for...I dunno, actually. As long as The Boy's been able to pay attention to the pictures in a book. He doesn't remember a time before story time.

It's one of my favorite parts of the day. The Boy is almost in bed for the night (*whew*), and Isaac gets to step in and spend some time with him, one-on-one, enjoying a story together. Isaac spends time with The Boy, of course, besides story time. And The Boy spends a lot of time with books during the day--I read to him during school, and he reads to himself periodically throughout the day. 

But bedtime story time is tradition. I hope we can keep it going for a long time.

Aaah! General Conference!

{photo by More Good Foundation}

General Conference! It's soon!

That's what went through my head yesterday.

[Here's more info on the General Conference of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.]

So I've been gathering ideas to keep The Boy busy and at least a little bit engaged. Aaand...I've been thinking I should share my favorite resources for General Conference kid stuff. There are tons of awesome ideas out there. These are just some that I think will work well for The Boy.

Let's start with my favorite favorites:

Moms Have Questions Too has several posts with super-original General Conference activities for toddlers and preschoolers.

Katie's Blogness has a note-taking activity that I think will be perfect for The Boy, since he loves wheeled things.

More sites that were helpful:

Food Storage and Beyond has her own activities, as well as links to others.

Sugardoodle has new packets up for this conference, of course.

Lady Create-a-Lot's activities are good for the whole family.

Here are some activities for different age levels, plus snack ideas.

About.com's LDS page has some of the usual ideas--bingo, matching games, that kind of thing.

And LDS.org has activities for getting your kids ready for General Conference, which I think is a really good idea. I also like their Games & Activities page--it's got fun stuff that you can do anytime.

Are you guys getting ready yet? What are some of the best General Conference resources that you've found?

Fingerprint Shamrocks

...in the dark!

Just kidding--I forgot that I had the flash on when I took this photo. I promise that we were doing this craft in the middle of the afternoon, with the blinds open and everything.

Anyways.

We're on a home school break this week, doing all kinds of Irish-y things. (I stole our schedule from Megan--we school year-round, with a break every few weeks, and I try to make the breaks fall just before a holiday so we have time to do holiday stuff.)

This wee little craft is pretty simple--just make green fingerprints for the shamrock leaves and use a green pen to draw the stems. I made a shamrock with four leaves first, and Little Boy went along with it for a few minutes, but then he informed me that shamrocks have three leaves and he made only three-leaved shamrocks after that. So there.

Math Quote of the Day

So, picture this. I'm on the computer, and Little Boy's at the kitchen table working on his subtraction workbook (which he's in love with, but that's another story). Then I hear a frustrated little voice:

"Uhh...I'm having a problem over here!"

Cracked me up. I had to hide my giggles, of course. Math problems are not funny. (Teehee.)

Christmas-ing It Up

Christmas is in full swing at our little house. We've been:

mixing...

gluing...

decorating...

wrapping...

and putting the presents under the tree. Literally. [We love that little tree.]

What's going on at your house?

Blue-Skinned Pilgrims

(I might have helped a little with the coloring.)

I'm thinking about just posting homeschooling stuff on this blog, since I hardly ever post on the actual homeschool blog. Yay/nay?

I have a handful of photos from Thanksgiving, but most of them are of... food. And I am not a food photographer. So those are flat-out boring, and I won't make you look at them.

I did manage to take one non-food photo, though. Ta-da! Puppet patterns from here. Toilet paper rolls from my house. Puppet arm positioning by Isaac.

We also made a little turkey to go with them, but he didn't make it into the photo.

Trick or Treat...?

I know it's November 2nd, but I left my camera at my mom's house and just got it back. So pretend it's still Halloween, m'kay?

Little Boy gave Halloween two thumbs up at the end of the night. Wanna see what we did?

We made Halloween sugar cookies a few days before. The mini M&Ms were supposed to be for making faces, but when it got down to it, Little Boy decided they made better polka dots.

Little Boy was so looking forward to carving a pumpkin with Isaac. Until...

...we made him touch the pumpkin guts. He sobbed and insisted on washing his hand right away. Yes, we are excellent parents.

This is what happens when you leave the pumpkin carving to the boys--you get a picture of a monster truck crushing a car. Rendered in pumpkin.

We ate mummy dogs for dinner. Thanks for the idea, Pinterest!

Looks gross, huh. Blood and guts potatoes are a Halloween tradition 'round here.

And now, the photo you've all been waiting for:

This is the best shot I have of Little Boy's costume. The cuteness comes through, though, right?

This is the top of Little Boy's hat. My favorite part of the costume, if you wanna know.

We didn't do this on purpose, but we ended up trick-or-treating on a street that got hardly any trick-or-treaters at all. Little Boy got the pick of whatever (handfuls of) candy he wanted.

Which explains the two thumbs up.

Bonus photo! My sister works at a thrift store, and Halloween is the store's busy season. The employees were encouraged to dress up, and they had a different costume theme every day. Can you guess the theme for the costume she's wearing?

(Hint: You can't tell in the photo, but she's wearing a fancy dress that's a little...um...out of style.)

Playing at the Museum

Our local museums offer a free day once in awhile, but I've never been able to go. Isaac always has our car at work or at school on those days.

But Isaac's on summer break right now. So this was my one chance to go to the free day at the museum. Ha!

We spent a lot of time in an area that's supposed to be for families, but it's really for kids. The rest of us...watched Little Boy play. And play and play and play.

My lovely sister, Kaylyn, came along. Hi, sister!

And so did my brother Thane, who was at home for a couple weeks from BYU. Oh, and Isaac. But he always tags along.

Once Little Boy was done, we went to see some other cool stuff. Cool stuff that I don't have pictures of. Sorry.

So my free-day-at-the-museum dreams came true. It wasn't even crowded. Check and see if your local museum has free days--free fun is the best kind of fun.

Green Smoothie Popsicles

Two things you should know before you read this post:

1. My mind was totally blown when I realized I could freeze smoothies in popsicle molds--I love real-fruit popsicles, but I don't like all the sugar.

2. I'm afraid of blenders.

So I told Little Boy (months ago) that we could make some popsicles. Someday. And then I forgot. And forgot and forgot and forgot and forgot....

But I finally did it today. Since green smoothies (that is, a smoothie with leafy greens in it) are all the rage right now, I decided to use a green smoothie recipe for our popsicles.

See, they don't even look green. Little Boy was concerned that "green" popsicles would taste like limes. He doesn't like lime popsicles.

I used the first recipe on this site. Fruit, spinach, no sugar. (Edit: I made half of the recipe. It was the perfect amount for eight little popsicles.) We haven't tasted them yet, but the smoothie was pretty good before freezing it.

Little Boy is REALLY hoping that tomorrow will be warm. Warm means that Mommy will let him eat a popsicle.

Library Llamas

No, really. There were llamas at our library. Well, outside our library. This was the only photo I got that doesn't have millions of random strangers' faces in it. See the baby llama? One of the cutest things I have ever seen. {Cross-posted at Pie for Breakfast}

Sweepin' the Clouds Away

Play time! We had a sunny-ish day (not today--this was a couple weeks ago), so Little Boy and I headed to the playground.

 

He's obsessed with slides. They're not as scary as swings.

 

 So Little Boy got some energy out...

 

 ...and I got to chill out. Good day.

The Storybook Shelf

So...I made a third blog. Y'know, because I do such a good job of keeping up my other two blogs. (Heh.) It's like...a children's book review blog. I love to read, and I love all kinds of books. And I love recommending books to other people. So I started The Storybook Shelf to help me remember children's books my family has liked, and to maybe help my friends find books that their kids might like. Children's books are fun, and let's be honest...both children and adults can enjoy a good children's book. It doesn't quite work the same with grown-up books. So, if that sounds like something you might want to look at, click on through. I don't update it very often yet, but I hope to pick up the pace soon.

Daddy Time

There are some things that Isaac teaches Little Boy to do, because I either don't know how or can't do them very well. Things like playing with Lincoln Logs and Legos.

 And now these:

 
Checkers.

 
And chess.

 Little Boy's having a hard time grasping chess and checkers. He isn't competitive at all, and he doesn't really "get" that he should try to win the game. I expect that to last, oh...maybe until he has a sibling--then he'll have someone to compete with.

Birthday Boy, Part 1

Little Boy turned four this year. Four! We keep birthdays pretty low-key around here. We haven't had any big parties with a million little kids running around. Yet. (I think next year we'll probably throw him a "real" birthday party. But I'm putting my foot down at half-a-million kids.) So here's the first part of his big day: Presents from Mommy and Daddy first thing in the morning--because what little kid wants to wait until after breakfast to open presents? I've wanted to get him a set of pattern blocks forever...his birthday was a good excuse to finally get a set. After breakfast, we went to Grandma's house. There were cars. Cars are important to Little Boy. See the drum on the left? He asked for a drum specifically. "With two drumsticks." How old are you, Little Boy? (Those are the chocolate-frosting-with-sprinkles cupcakes he asked for.) Coming up in Part 2: birthday fun at the park! And! More! Presents!

Tip: Remove Old Dry-Erase Marks

{photo source} Sometimes I put Little Boy's worksheets in page protectors (the smooth kind), so he can do them over and over again with dry erase markers. Works great.

Except when you forget to erase it. And discover it several days later.

Then it's stuck.

So I turned to good ol' Google and started working my way through suggestions for removing dry erase marker.

Vinegar: didn't work much better than water.

90% rubbing alcohol or hand sanitizer: I'm pretty sure that would've worked, but we were fresh out of both.

White toothpaste: worked like a charm.

You do have to wipe the toothpaste off with a little water, of course. I don't know whether toothpaste will work on other surfaces, but it does work on Little Boy skin--he managed to get a little bit of dry erase marker on his chin while I was working on toothpaste-ing his page protectors.

{cross-posted at Pie For Breakfast}

Starfish and Octopuses and Squeegees, Oh My!

Little Boy, my sister, and I visited the nearby Marine Life Center a couple weeks ago. Imagine the smallest aquarium ever, where the biggest specimen is a small octopus. That's the Marine Life Center.

 

It's right on the water. I thought Little Boy would like seeing the boats, but...boats don't have wheels. So they're not cool. "But the boats on Spongebob have wheels!" Maybe that's why he likes Spongebob so much.

 

There's a big tank in the middle of the room that you can look down into, three smaller tanks around the side, and a little touch tank. We'll get to that in a minute.

 

That's an octopus. Ick. I don't want to talk about it.

 

He approves.

 

We really only brought my sister along to squeegee the tanks for us. Haha.

 

One of the smaller tanks has a plastic bubble in the middle, so little kids (or small adults like me) can crawl underneath and get an inside view. Little Boy's face in this picture makes me giggle.

 

And here's the touch tank. The water in it is FREEZING--after all, these are all local animals that live in our icy coastal water. And! Look! Little Boy put his hand in the freezing water and touched a starfish. I tell ya, he's making a lot of progress.

Beach Trip

I have a lot of pictures here, so I'm not going to type much. We'd been learning about the beach, so we took a trip to the nearest one (it's more of a seashore than a beach, I think--you'll see in the pictures). My baby sister drove--she needs a lot of practice hours before she can get her license. Little Boy hadn't been to the beach (seashore?) in at least a year. We had this part of the beach to ourselves. Rocky, huh? My brother tagged along, too. Little Boy found a tiny shell--you can't tell in the photo, but the shell is fingernail-sized. I wouldn't recommend swimming in this water (although some people do). We wear rain boots instead. We saw barnacles, little crabs, seaweed, gulls, and seashells--all things we'd learned about at home. And Little Boy thought that was kinda cool. But really, all a three-year-old boy wants to do at the beach is throw rocks in the water. {cross-posted at Pie For Breakfast}