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

SUPER HERO WEEK

So we're doing a super hero week...the kids LOVE all things super hero. We've been focusing our lessons on character traits of super heroes...like the Stripling Warriors who were courageous, strong and truthful. 

Playing a super hero matching game

On Monday our very own super hero was able to take off work, so we went on a SUPER short day trip.

Will is showing off his SUPER strength at his gymnastics class

These super hero pics didn't turn out as fabulous as I'd seen elsewhere, but they're pretty fun

Saving letters and sight words from the Alphabet Villain. They loved finding the words and sounds I called out. This was a great "boy" activity, he was so focused the entire time because he got to run back and forth while thinking about the sounds he was supposed to find. SUCCESS!

Using SUPER vision

And as I type, my little superheroes are running around in the back...in their super pajamas...at 10:30. I was one of those ladies who swore her kids would never do certain things...playing outside in pajamas was DEFINITELY one of those things! Luckily, pajamas can be washed. I guess it's bath-time!

More Olympics

Painting Olympic rings...

 that turned into monsters!

Running around in the 50+ degree weather, and SUN, finally some sun!

Valentines

We played Olympic Bingo. This ended up being a great chance to talk about good sportsmanship and how to behave when you lose! Character Building!

We've talked a lot about flags this week with the Olympics, so we made some of our own. Ruth made the Lithuanian flag and Will just got creative

Caden Dirks

My dear friend, Stephanie Dirks, has 5 adorable and amazing kids. Her oldest, Caden, is 12. He's been in the hospital for 2 weeks (arriving there after being life flighted after finding a bleeding mass on his liver). He has liver cancer, but started chemo this week. He is an amazing boy, just like his mama. A family member started a drive for Caden to help cover medical costs while they are away from home (they have to be in Seattle for 3 months, while all the little kids are still here being passed around between friends and family). This is such a trying time for them and thought I'd pass on the link to help support Caden. If you can, please donate, even if it's a few dollars, click on THIS LINK TO MAKE A PAYMENT. It's easy and secure. Also, if you'd like to read about this amazing family, Stephanie has a blog HERE, you can follow their journey.

I'm so grateful to have made such good friends here already who are so kind. They have helped us to feel at home right away...just like what happened in Twin Falls. We've been so blessed with good friends. I guess I just want to pay it forward however I can. I really can't imagine being in Stephanie's shoes right now, but she has amazing faith.