november challenge-- 30 days of thankful: days 9-17

Thankful for: 9. / / a little girl who loves the beach just as much as her mommy. 10. / / a handsome guy that looks cute even when he's shoving a slice of pizza down his throat. 11. / / the simple things in life: like making houses out of colored scraps. 12. / / my health 13. / / little legs that i can walk into any store with and walk out empty handed with no tears. 14. / / access to fresh local food. 15. / / access to warmth and sweet slippers. 16. / / a little girl who would rather play tennis than bake cookies any day. 17. / / a growing girl who is smart, kind, confident, and independent. 

46/52

"A portrait of my child once a week, every week, in 2013."

Logan: This week I spent a few nights away from home for work. You and Daddy spent lots of time together. 

I'm proud to say, that you got your silly side from him. 

You two are quite the pair.

Don't ever loose your sense of humor, you little goof.

nature in the home / / autumn: my pet rock

Early fall we took a ride down to the beach, and came home with lots of treasures. 
This gem was one of them. 
We've been carrying this rock around since, always thinking it looked more like a seal than a rock. Oddly enough it came from the ocean.

So today we turned it into a seal, officially. 
A circus seal to be exact-- notice that ball on its nose.

Logan loved painting and again getting her hands on the glue gun. 
I loved showing her how we can take one thing and turn it into something else. 

Linking up here.

november challenge-- 30 days of thankful: days 5-8

 Thankful for: 5./ / my own little personal artist 6./ / what little bit of baby i have left in my girl (until santa comes to take the pacifiers to babies who have none) 7./ / our favorite store coming to our closest mall 8./ / my beautiful babes in the bath-- her zen. i don't think there was ever a day where she fought tubby time. (i'm still convinced she's part fish!)

45/52

"A portrait of my child once a week, every week, in 2013."

Logan: your face, those coupled hands, and that oversized vintage collar. I can't get enough.

A similar photo about a year ago here.

There were too many photos this week to choose from-- especially difficult with the ones of Lo and her most favorite cousin. They are the sweetest pair.

nature in the home: sensory play

We've been admiring the berries on the tree in our front yard for the past two weeks now. We've also been brainstorming ideas for an autumnal inspired sensory bin for about that long. On Wednesday, these two thoughts collided and it was great. We combined our natural elements: acorns, berries, rocks, leaves, and a pumpkin (for good measure) with a few 'play mobil' staples and we were busy for hours.

In this little world there were concerts, surfs playing fetch with a dog and a frog, and a big strawberry shortcake doll bossing around a little strawberry shortcake doll. Life in this box was interesting and sweet. I'm glad I got to witness it.

Our berries have begun to turn pruney and dry out. We have big plans for the acorns though. Lo wants to find a way to incorporate them into our winter bin. She may be slightly obsessed with them. Especially since we found some with tops! Woohoo! It's the little things, really.

Here is our last sensory bin.


Linking up here.

preschool homeschool// week 9

This week, Logan was the least bit interested in doing her 'letter art' craft. She hasn't been herself lately, fighting a lingering stuffy nose, so I didn't take it personally. 

I let her work at her own pace and by the end of the week, she completed them. She did a good job despite her lack of interest. I'm thinking next week, we'll need to pull the paint out again. 

And maybe some stickers. 

This girl goes gaga for both.

 

She also goes gaga over stamps, and the fact that she can fully use them on her own. It's kind of hard to be creative with stamps though, so we don't use them a ton-- but I came across this one I had made in a course I took during my undergrad. It's supposed to be a tree. I'm thinking next time, we could use black ink and then color in the white spots to make it more of an activity rather than just an act of 'stamping.' Either way, I know Lo is game.

Logan is suddenly very into writing words. 

I prompt her on how to write the letters, then she does it on her own. 

She's getting better each day.

Our week would not be complete without a glue activity.  

Crazy Glue lady, hard at work.

Logan has been going to this book a lot lately. I made this alphabet book for her when I was pregnant. I kept it out of reach during her toddler years so it would still be intact for her preschool years, when the book would actually make sense to her. She loves it, and references it a lot. I've been clipping and printing things for her so she can make her own one day.

With Halloween this week, I wanted to have some semi-spooky themed things for us to do. Coincidentally, this week's letter was 'W' and logan was a witch for Halloween, so this book only seemed perfect to be our book this week. It's a really cute story about a witch who is told to be bad, but she just wants to be good. Lo has been having a similar struggle with her costume. People always ask her: "Are you going to be a good witch or a bad witch?" Her answer was always changing.

Here is my little witch as dressed up and ready to go with her favorite little princess.

 

We also mad some Halloween cards (some of which still haven't been delivered.) We made some last year and they came out so great that I decided we'd do them again. We used stickers, colored paper, paper tape, and cut out images from National Geographic magazine.

 And since card making is a favorite thing for Lo to do, we made cards for a party we had on the weekend. Logan did more writing.

Letter themed activities that we did: 

Q- counted quarters and played the quite game.

W- wrote words, did weather activities and crafts (which we will go more in depth in later,) whale research, dressed up as a witch (hello Halloween costume!)

Now that Halloween is over, we are eager and excited to incorporate all things Thanksgiving and Christmas related.