More Fall Fun

Here are a few other fall themed activities we have tried around the house...

Put the eyes on the monster!

Swat the sight word (ok this wasn't very fall themed but I told her to swat the fall apples? That was a stretch right?)

Dairy Queen!

What better way to end our Ice Cream Unit than with a trip to DQ?  Elli agrees!

Ice Cream Week

Today we started a unit on ice cream.  All week we will do ice cream activities. 

 I think we will both like this one!

Playing ice cream shop.  How many scoops do you need?!?

Last Day

Well we made it home.  And it only took 8 hours instead of the 10 it took us to get there, so that was an improvement.  We checked out of our hotel on Friday morning and went to the zoo again.  I couldn't resist going through it with Jacob, it was such a good zoo.  Plus, we figured we would make them super tired and they would take a good nap while we drove.  This plan worked slightly - we made Jackson so tired he refused to eat lunch. I was trying to stuff sandwich in his mouth and he just closed his eyes and went to sleep. He still took a 2 hour nap before waking up for lunch.  Elli just watched a lot of movies on the way home.  We are all recuperating today but I had such a fun time.  Definitely there were rough/tough/awful moments - but all in all, it was a lot of fun to spend time together as a family away from chores.

Daddy came with us to the zoo!!!

We got to feed the giraffes! Look how close we are!!! Jackson loved this!

Day Three - Children's Museum

Today started out a bit rough with everyone waking around 6:30 am.  By 8:00 am we were ready to go but our destination (the hands on children's museum) didn't open until 9:30.  So we had to hang out for a bit in the hotel room which can be trying. The museum is just a few minutes down the road and everyone had fun!  Jackson made me earn my keep trying to do EVERYTHING Elli did - he is so brave and that is not always a good thing.  Still we played for two hours.  Apparently we can get back in with our morning payment so we may go back after nap if Elli says she would like that.

Already copying Elli

This was an awesome toy! Laser Pegs - definitely on Christmas list for future years.

Playing veterinarian

One of our favorite places, the fire trucks

Something that looks like a shovel...Jackson is happy

Ahoy Thar Mateys!!!

We are finishing up our Pirate Week at Summer Camp by Mom.  I was hoping to take Elli on a pirate ship Saturday that was coming to New Bern, but the company cancelled the tour so I'm not sure how to end our pirate week. We may all haul in the car and meet the pirate ship in Beaufort, or we may get creative here in New Bern. We'll see how we feel tomorrow (more importantly...how Daddy feels).  

Summer camp could be better - I would appreciate a little more routine but that may be too much to ask from a 3 year old.  She did great with all of our work.  We focused on patterns, beginning sounds, sorting, coin names, added a new sight word "look."  Some days we did our work after nap, sometimes after breakfast, sometimes while we ate lunch.  Jackson has been sick all week so we had to work around his needs (and he had a lot of them!)

We won't do a theme next week since we have VBS and then the following week we will study Oceans (with a trip to Jacksonville Florida with Daddy's work!!!!)

Created a Storm in a Bottle

Adding rocks for the bottom of the sea...

Putting in "treasure" from our treasure chest.

The different levels of food coloring gave opportunity to talk about how the bottom of the ocean was dark since it was far away from the sun.

Patterns

Sorting our treasure

Just The Beginning...

Summer is just beginning and we are gearing up for a hot one!  Jacob, being the wonderful husband that he is, noticed how much time I was spending on the deck with the the bambinos and expanded it for us. Now we have more room to run and play.  We returned the favor by helping him wash the car today.  I'm sure he really appreciated our help (note the sarcasm there!)

Let's get this summer started!!!

I had a tiny bit of flour left in a bag so the kids enjoyed "cooking" outside with it.

Apparently Jackson sat in it!

Time to wash the car everyone!

Messy Book Club

Today we got creative and used this idea for book club.  We let the kids get messy and boy did they!  We had a flour station, finger paints, water table, spaghetti bin, shaving cream bucket, goop bucket, and bubbles.  It was a fun morning!  We are so glad to get to spend some time with buddies getting our energy out!

Even Jackson loved it!

ps - my wish for summer has come true.  Jackson is really getting good at walking so that he can enjoy himself at events like this too.  He is more stable and doesn't want to be held - he wants to explore.  Watch out summer fun..here we come!!!

Jumpin' Jax

As part of another spring break activity, we went to Jumping Jax with some friends.  It has been rainy and cold this week so it was a perfect energy outlet.  I got a babysitter for Jackson so I could really focus on playing with Elli and I think that was the best idea for everyone.  The two ladies I went with were both App friends.  We were all in school together, going to football games, riding around in my convertible and just having fun.  This week, we were riding in my minivan.  I have two kids, Molly has 2 and one on the way, and Brandy has one on the way too.  Look what time will do to ya!  Anyways, it was a blast to catch up and the kids had fun too.
Sorry for the blurry pictures but it is very hard to get a picture of a kid while she is jumping on an inflatable.

This girl has no fear.  This was her favorite slide and it was steep and fast!  Look at her go.!!

I will post videos of this which are hilarious!!

break time