X-Rays

In honor of Halloween, I will post this draft that's been sitting on my blog for a few months.  It's an x-ray. Of my skull.

Here's a much cuter (and more recent) version.

Love This Boy

Love this Boy. And he loves his alligator.  And my bed.  It's a good trade.

Home Preschool: Monster Theme

Today felt like a holiday! John worked, so we didn't go to Disneyland, and Maggie was home.  We did all the preschool activities I had planned for a Monster theme.

First was a jell-o sensory box.  I used jell-o that has been sitting in our fridge since John was on a liquid diet two weeks ago. Neither of the kids wanted to eat it, until it was in the sensory box, of course.   It's just green jell-o and some monstrous-looking dinosaurs.  Dalton hates having his hands dirty, so even though I made this for him, he only played for a minute or two, washing his hands twice.

Maggie went and got more dinosaurs and played for over an hour.  Her fingers were stained green for the better part of the day.

This monster math activity idea is from No Time for Flashcards.  I folded some construction paper in half and cut out monster shapes. Dalton was upset that his didn't have "gloves" so I had to do a little liposuction and create some arms for him.

I got a package of eyeball stickers at Jo-ann in the $1 section (so $.60 with a 40% coupon).  The kids put on as many eyeballs as they wanted. Dalton counted his up, and Maggie counted up each side, then added them together.

After making monsters, we read Where the Wild Things Are (twice) and The Monster at the End of This Book.  Then the kids got out their monster puppets (from Aunt Erin when Dalton was born) and did a puppet show.  And they just finished watching Monster's, Inc, which means my lying down time is up.

A couple years ago, we made a giant cardboard monster to throw toys in. It was a big hit.  That monster craft idea came from Mommysavers.  The idea for the Monster preschool theme came when we were doing monster playdough a few weeks ago.

Hit the Pig

I walked in on a wild game of Piggyball the other day.

Disneyland Halloween Fun

Maggie had today off from school so we went to Disneyland (along with half of Utah's population).  Sadly, neither of the kids wanted to post with the world's cutest fairy godmother.

Dalton WAS happy to pose with the bird (even though it didn't say Yo Ho!) but the sun was in his eyes.

He also posed with the treat he picked out from his favorite store, just outside Winnie-the-Pooh.  We let him pick a treat and said it was from Grandma & Grandpa, who sent birthday money.

I took the kids to the Halloween carnival.  They did some crafts and saw Mickey & Friends in costume, playing with the kids.

 I couldn't decide which of these cutie-pie photos I liked better.

We also went to the pumpkin patch down the road earlier this week. Apparently, the highlight was DIY face painting, because that's pretty much all I took pictures of.  I made Maggie a little ghost and a pumpkin for Dalton.

Maggie gave herself a jack-o-lantern and Dalton gave himself a couple smears.

Morro Bay and Pumpkin Patch

The kids and I drove to the coast this weekend for a short visit with their cousins.

Dinner on the bay.

Pumpkin Patch

Morro Strand Beach - this is where we find all the sand dollars, which Maggie was really excited about.

(a similar picture from the same beach is at the end of the post from our Morro Bay trip in January.)

Dalton got his fill of football and Nascar. (There's a fun on of Maggie and Uncle Alan watching cartoons when Dalton was a baby.)

And we went to the kids' soccer games as well!

Mickey's Halloween Party 2012

We went to Mickey's Halloween Party for Dalton's 3rd birthday! It was lots of fun.

Here are some old-school with flash pictures.

Home Preschool: Cars

This week's home preschool theme was Cars, to go along with Dalton's Racing Birthday Party.

He did this tire track painting his first week of art class, so I didn't have to do it at home!

Maggie helped me gather up every single car we own (34 - though I later found another one in my purse).  We hid them in a box, then I brought it out for Dalton while M was at school.  First, he sorted all the cars by color.

 

Then we made an inaccurate rainbow.



Then we lined them up by size, and he "raced" them all.  Getting all the cars together like this was a huge hit! He had a lot of fun sorting them, especially the colors.  I highly recommend this to anyone with a little kid who loves cars.

For this cars coloring activity, I taped some crayons to the back of cars and he had to drive them to color.  We had to drive the cars backwards to get them to work, so I recommend taping the crayons to the front of the cars. He thought this was pretty fun, though.  Idea from First Palette.

Another fun car activity that we didn't repeat this week is the homemade car garage we made in India.

Dalton Turns 3!

I like having an October baby.  We've had some fun Halloween birthdays.   And then there was that one in Dubai. But most of all, I love my little guy.  Not so little anymore!

Big Purse/Mini Diaper Bag

I've wanted a bigger purse for a while now, something that holds a water bottle in addition to everything else, basically.  Of course, I had to make one, because I couldn't find one. I ordered the dandelion fabric from fabric.com after thinking it over for a month.  It's canvas, and I used heavy interfacing as well. I found the butter yellow polka dots at Jo-ann for the lining - just what I was looking for!  I used this basic sling bag tutorial, but I didn't measure. I just made a pattern from newspaper that looked about the size I was looking for. I also added topstitching, which I don't think was mentioned in the tutorial.

I. Love. It.  It'll be perfect for times I don't want to haul a diaper bag around, but of course, still need to bring diapers. Because soon I will have a kid in diapers again.

Here's the inside!  I used a magnetic snap for the first time, and made a pocket to fit the iphone I don't have yet.

Maggie took this lovely picture of me modeling my new purse (and my baby belly - this is 34.5 weeks).