Goopy Slimey Week

This week was all about sensory fun. We started out easy with playdough.

 Claire loved sticking stuff into the playdough

 Will is playing in the dirt, he planted a daffodil bulb

Then we stepped up the "yuck" factor with pudding.  Claire mostly wanted to eat it, but that's the fun about painting with pudding!

Then we took a bath-paint bath. They all loved this

Will is working on number recognition by rolling a die and putting the blocks on the corresponding number. He really liked this.

Painting with wet chalk, also a favorite

Sweet sleeping baby. She's been a big napper this week.

Ice cream is sloppy

Then we started making a big mess, and not everybody was happy about the goo. Paper mache

Then we made slime with liquid starch and glue...big kids loved rescuing the little people from the slime monster...Claire, not so much.

 I got new glasses after more than 3 years

Painting our paper mache after it had dried

Excavating for treasure in frozen jello

 Shaving cream fun. We read a book about how rain is formed and then did a rain experiment...then we sprayed shaving cream all over the table, back window and finally the big bath tub. Claire once again hated the sloppiness...until we were in the tub.

And today when I finally crawled out of bed, this is what I found 2 of the critters doing.

Today we went on a 3 mile hike with the kids. It was mostly flat so it was easy, just a bit cold.

Weekend fun!

We had so much fun today! We started the day by hiking up Badger Mountain. Later we went on a drive around the area and found the Twin sisters to climb. We ate Chinese food on our way home and finished the day with brownies and shows.

Week in Review

Fists of Justice! This is their new favorite dress-up item

We repeated super hero week, but combined it with flags. We had fun. Here the kids are creating super hero families. The super hero body says "all" or "et" or "at." Then the different heads have consonants. Will did great and totally was able to make words.

  Ruth used "S" and "M" on the "all" body to make the word "small," which I was super impressed by.

We made a super hero hideout.

We talked about super hero symbols, matched the symbol to the hero, and then matched the flags (symbols of countries) to the country. It was fun and we learned what symbols are.

Painting with marbles and gravity.

Keeping the monster happy by feeding him letter sounds. 

Sending pom poms down the tubes and trying to make it into the bucket at the end. The pom poms were also fun to shove down each others shirts!

I've been making quiet books for the kids. I made one for Claire and then Ruth and Will wanted one too. Here's the big kid one. I used a bunch of Will's old T's.

 This is the favorite page in their book. Everything is velcro

This is Claire's book, she loves to say, "buckle."

 These are the favorite pages in her book: zippered froggy mouth, peek-a-boo panda, and the rainbow with velcro clouds.

Obstacle course!

 Today the kids and I did a 5k. Ruth started out on her scooter, but half way through she stuck it in the bottom of the stroller and just ran. She decided she wants to be an Olympic runner...either way it's great that she loves exercise! Will did a much better job keeping up with the stroller, although this picture was taken at the end and he was pretty tired.

 After dinner, Brad jumped in the car and took us to a new ice cream place. They had wild flavors (and colors) for the kids, and our shakes were awesome.

Recent Activities

We've begun our great growing Odyssey! Here the kids helped me plant some bell pepper seeds in recycled soda bottles.

 You can also see our tray of egg cartons filled with dirt and tons of strawberry seeds! Can't wait to see this all start to grow and have a bounty of strawberries, YUM!

Claire is showing off her book

 Then Ruth joined the party

 Everything was civil until the boy hopped in

Making words and playing with letters and sounds

 Claire got jealous I was snapping photos of the older sibs and came stomping over to get my attention. As soon as I turned the camera on her she hammed up!

Playing Sorry with friends: Will was mad I interrupted the game

Brad worked late a couple nights so the kids and I went around the corner to BK. We played for an hour. The weather has been so cruddy that they REALLY enjoyed getting to play on the indoor playground. 

 Is it just me, or do those tunnels look a lot like hampster cages?

 Claire loves fries

The other morning Will came into my room and said, "Mom, it's 6, dot dot, E, L." He was looking at my digital clock. I told him to go away for 30 more minutes...but was also really glad he's trying to read the time and make associations.

Update

My phone got run over by a shopping cart at WinCo. Just ordered a new one, because it's way cheaper to get one on Amazon than at Verizon. Here are a couple pictres I neglected to post previously