Tot School

~Wyatt is 43 months. Levi is 30 months~

We had a fun week with all things Letter D...
Dinosaur books, Dinosaur puppets, Duck books, Duck coloring pages, a Duck puppet.
Bible Story: Noah building the Ark
Bible Verse: If you love me, you will obey what I command.
Both of the boys learned the Bible verse very well this week and we talked about it how Noah loved God, and obeyed him even when the people though he was strange to build a boat. They seemed to comprehend that since we love God, we need to obey what the Bible says about being kind to each other and obeying our parents. At least they answered all the questions I asked correctly! But I'm sure it will take some time for them to actually be able to consistenly act on this lesson learned :-)
Here are some pictures to show more of what we did:
Using the tools they thought Noah might have used to build to ark.
We also picked out matching (2 of every kind) animal crackers from a huge pile and glued them onto a picture of the ark.

Counting all the "loot" from our Letter D scavenger hunt

They both filled up these boxes with things around the house that started w/ the letter D.

Wyatt's Number Match/Counting Game

Wyatt coloring, and Levi taking a break to suck his thumb while the Dinosaur puppets watch them!

Levi's twist on color sorting (having the dinosaur eat the shapes that were in the cups). He sorted a few of them b4 his dinosaur got hungry!

Dinosaur color match

Name Activity--letter match

Making dinosaur footprints

Look Mom, even the tail makes a footprint!

Our "life school" lesson of the day...
Wonderful day for a picnic lunch on the back deck. The leaves and acorn near Wyatt's knee fell while were were eating and started a great natural opportunity for teaching/learning! See, who said kids need to go to "preschool"?

Saving Time and Money

Something all of us are interested, right??
Well, I don't have anything profound or original, but just little things that I'm thrilled about that save me time and money, though not necessarily at the same time!
Let's start w/ Saving Time:
For those of you know me well, this is going to be shocking!! ha!
I stopped wearing eye makeup on a day to day basis. I still will put it on when going out for a Girls Night Out or Moms Night Out, or on a date of course :-)...which btw reminds me a funny Wyatt story...
We had a babysitter coming one night to watch the boys b/c Adam had an Open House at school and I really wanted to go to a Pampered Chef party my SIL was having. Let me preface this with, "We Rarely Get Babysitters". Wyatt said, "Are you guys going on a date?" (thanks to my parents this past summer, he does know what date is b/c we got to go out alot!!!). Adam said, "No, I have to go to a meeting at work". Wyatt said, "Well, then is Mommy going on a date?". We both chuckled and Adam teased me and said, "I don't know, Mommy are you going on a date?" ha ha!
Anyway, I finally realized one day that all I do is put on my eye makeup to end up taking time to take it off at the end of the day. And I'm always exhausted, and don't think that eye makeup really helps to take that look away! So I'll embrace the exhausted look, and save myself some time in the AM and PM.
And I stopped washing my hair too! well, not completely of course! But I only wash it every 3 days or so. Seriously! Don't worry, I do shower, just not the whole hair process. And believe me, w/ long hair, it is a "process". Got a tip from a college friend to use baby powder around where my hair meets my forehead and my temples (where it would be more greasy looking). And it works wonders folks!!
Maybe when my kids are older I'll have more time to wash my hair daily and wear eye makeup, but for now I would rather read them books, give them hugs and laugh w/ them. (and do all the dishes and laundry that they create :-)
Saving Money:
A few months ago, I was on a Saving-Money-Blog-reading-frenzy. But here lately, I'm on a Homeschool-Blog-Reading-Frenzy. I go back and forth where I get to spend my "free time". I love to watch for sales and pair them w/ coupons, and love to use websites that make it super easy like: Southern Savers, Money Saving Mom, and Hip to Save. But I'll save more of those details for another post. But one thing I must share was a tip from my friend Jill...
It's called: Whole Boneless Beef Sirloin Tip
It's on sale for $1.98 lb at Food Lion this week (and seems to only have this great sale every 3 months)
You probably won't even be able to find it right away (at least I couldn't) b/c you don't realize what it looks like. The best way to describe it, is that it looks like a HUGE whole turkey for Thanksgiving. It's in a vacuum sealed pack. it will be about $18 to $20 for the whole big ole thing! (that is the sale price I mean).
You put one (or 2 or 3) in your cart, and ring the doorbell for the butcher. Our store has butcher hrs of 8am to 8pm. Then you ask him to make it into....
I asked for some ground meat (it's just like ground beef, but technically called ground sirloin), and some steaks. You can also ask for a roast to be cut out of it as well.
Then it takes him about 5 to 10 min, and he will package it all individually, but then wrap all the individual packages in one big wrap w/ the overall price on it.
I had him cut up 3 of those big 'ole hunks of meat and got 10 trays(approx 1.3 lbs each) of ground meat, 11 steaks (1 inch thick and about the size of a dinner plate), and 2 roasts (approx 2.5 lbs each) for $52!! Our freezer is packed!! And I just use the ground sirloin in any recipe that I would use ground beef or turkey.
I don't have any pictures for this post. Guess I could put a clip art picture of a a cow since I feel like I just purchased half a cow w/ all the meat I have in my freezer! keep your eyes open for this great sale at Food Lion!! Sale Ends tomorrow night though.

Tot School

~Wyatt is 43 months. Levi is 30 months~

Last week, we were on the Letter C. We had lots of fun with 2 themes: Cow and Caterpillars. It was so cute to hear Levi say the new words he learned this week--I pick a "vocab" word every week to go along with the weekly theme(s). Levi now knows what a calf is as well as an anntennae! Wyatt was very proud of himself that he remembered those words from last year.
Wyatt also worked on recognizing and writing the number 3. Levi just counted outloud with us, and had alot of fun during our "Three" game...jumping 3 times, clapping 3 times, spinning around 3 times, counting out 3 M & Ms, etc.
We had alot of fun getting down on our hands and knees and pretending to be cows. Wyatt designated himself as the daddy cow and Levi as the calf. They both loved the Barnyard Dance!
Our Bible Story for the week was Cain and Abel which they had a hard time comprehending, but they learned their names and what type of offering each of them brought to the Lord.
The both already knew the verse of the week pretty well since we have been teaching them this for a long time!! (Children Obey Your Parents...Ephesians 6:1)
Here are some pictures from a couple of our "school" times. One night, we did "school" after supper since Daddy was driving the bus to earn some extra money. They actually did really well at the time of night! I love that we do homeschool preschool!!
Painting their caterpillar's



This week's "artwork"

Levi playing with Wyatt's counting game from www.confessionsofahomeschooler.blogspot.com


Levi doing his own version of counting pom pom balls.

Wyatt putting the correct # of balls in the cup according to the caterpillar # I put by the cup (another idea from confessions of a homsechooler's blog). And Levi is now putting the pom poms in an egg carton (we have to do alot of switching or variation of activities for him and to allow each boy a chance at the "games" they fight over)

Decorating his caterpillar the he painted the day before.

Weekend with No Responsibilities!

Last weekend my friend Jill and I got the chance to get away from our responsibilities as wives and mothers. It was a nice break! Our husbands were so WONDERFUL to stay home w/ the kids for 2 nights!
We drove about 2 1/2 hrs North of Charlotte to Boone, NC. I had never been there, but Jill spent some time up there when she went to Appalachian State.
We stayed at a nice, quaint mom-n-pop run motel. Jill was my tour guide and took us all around the towns of Boone and Blowing Rock. It reminded me of a great mix of the mountains just north of where I grew up in PA (Bake Oven Knob for those of your from PA), and the country shops of Lancaster, PA.
It was such a change to be able to take a nap in the middle of the day, and to sleep in until 9am!!
Below is a picture of the Mast General Store. On the porch, there were 4 or 5 men playing instruments and singing Blue Grass Music. I loved it!



The corn was sooo tall, I had to take a picture for my Pop-pop!


We also drove on the Blue Ridge Parkway and stopped at the first trail that we came across. We parked, and got out to walk 2.3 miles around this lake thru the woods. It was very fun!


And here's a pictures of the gardens in front of our motel.