Our Quilt - So Far

Our Thanksgiving

We started the day with the building of a massive empire...

Then we got in some snuggles with our Nana!

After that we cleaned up the toys and some friends came over! Here's Mr. Brian...

Mr. Bruce and Ms. Lisa came too, but I don't think I got their picture!

Paul and I made our first turkey (among other things), and Nana kept the boys busy, busy, busy!

It was such a great, easy, fun time!

String Painting

String painting! They made some beautiful pictures with this project!
Levi saw this in the Make & Do volume, from the Childcraft library, and he really wanted to try it. I am so glad we found those books at that yard sale!

Counting to 100

Filling in the blanks, from 1 to 100. Levi used Cheerios to keep track of where he was - the ones he wasn't eating, that is!

Let the Quilting Begin!

We received our first pile of scraps for our charity quilting, and both of us were so excited! I could hardly exert the self-control necessary to prewash before we started cutting! But exert I did, and then we began the cutting!

We are making a log cabin quilt, one block at a time, as we find/receive fabric. I picked the log cabin, because Levi can actually help with the cutting, and for it's simplicity. And because it's fun.

If you have any fabric you'd like to donate, please contact me at miannaleesa [at] aol (dot) com (you'll have to type that in right, I'm just trying to battle the spam-bots:). As you can see, it doesn't have to be a lot!

We're going to send our finished quilt to a local charity that distributes them, and then (hopefully) start on another. One quilt at a time, right?!

P.E.

The boys had a blast at the park! I picked this one, because it has some great equipment for balance and upper body strengthening. Levi loves leaping from one spot to another, and there's plenty of climbing to do. He also spent a lot of time trying his hand at the monkey bars. This playground was totally built for people his size. The monkey bars are close together, and his feet are only a foot off the ground. Far enough to practice falling safely, and build up your confidence...

They also have three of these cool motorcycles - which Micah can now climb up and down all by himself! He is getting sooooo big!

We also got in some bike-riding!

He always laughs so hard as I try to "catch" him with the camera...I am grinning right now, just thinking about it!

Big Boys

Here's Levi attempting to teach his little brother addition... We had a big moment this week - it was time for Micah to move out of his crib. My philosophy behind that is when you're able to climb out (and fall), you're ready to move on. We also decided that he would be moving to the Big Boy Room. While Daddy and Micah were at the store, Levi was thrilled to help me set things up! We built a little tent around his bed, to help with that post-crib-security thing.

The super-squinty-smile...

View from the tent window...

Micah was soooo excited! As I write this, the boys are chatting in their room - they get some lights on time before the bed time buzzer goes off!

And here's some of our work. See the pink owl? It's pink because it is a baby Barn Owl, and they're pink with fluffy white feathers soon after they're born. To its right is the mama Barn Owl. Cool, huh?
And of course, some more quilt blocks...!

T, I, Double Guh, Er...

I have never met a kid who liked to bounce as much as my oldest. I swear A.A. Milne could have modeled Tigger off of a kid like him!

Train Show

Daddy took us to the train show at a local church, and we had such a great time! They had crafts, cupcakes, train whistles and engineer hats for the kids, plus all the trains! We even got an extra surprise when our good friends showed up!

"Ooooooh..."

I love that last shot - two satisfied kiddos!

Library Run

We spent the morning doing addition (with Math-mellows) and counting to 100 (with more Math-mellows), and doing reading & writing lessons. Then we headed to the library.

We go to the library every week. And every single week we fill our bag to overflowing. This week I actually had to carry some extras in my arms because we needed books on owls (science) and on ancient Egypt (history). There are so many cool books on Egypt, I have a feeling we might be talking about it for a while. We even picked up a CD of Peter and the Wolf.

Micah loves to sit and play with the puzzles, Levi helps me find books now, and they both like to visit with the other children and adults we find there.

Have a great Monday!

exercise

Aren't we a hoot? Sorry about the picture quality - I just sat the camera on the counter and told it to shoot!

And here's how my lace is looking so far...
Have a great weekend everyone!

art lessons

Levi is so funny! One day he is so confident with his art, and the next he questions himself. I will say that the questioning days are getting farther and farther apart though :). Below is a snapshot of some money he made. I would just like to point out the fact that my five year old has some understanding of what a "profile" is.
So, now that he's gotten into the swing of doing reading, writing and math everyday (with other stuff too), I thought I'd add in a little Art, to give him some simple tools to boost his confidence. He grinned from ear to ear when I brought out my giant art pad. And he copied me enthusiastically as we worked on some of the basic elements of drawing. Then we put them together to make nonsense, abstract things (just to keep finding those elements), and then we made some actual pictures. He ended with wanting to copy some of my artwork, which was just a sketch of one of my characters in my book. He ran out of room and stopped, but I have done that a million times, and it's just part of drawing.

I have the BEST job in the whole world.

Beaver Lodge

For science this week, we're studying beavers! Levi made a wonderful beaver lodge out of pretzel sticks and peanut butter mud, we used blue plates for the water. He even made a little marshmellow beaver with a flat cheese tail to hide in the lodge. Micah made one too. On a two-year-old level, of course. Here's Levi making a beaver...And here's Micah eating a beaver...

And here they are building the lodge...

Life science is so much fun! Levi showed his lodge to everybody! (Don't you just love Micah's beaver lodge? It's on the dark blue plate)

The end.