Thursday, August 27, 2009

Some Changes

I have been doing some updates on the blog. As you can see I have changed the background to a more appropriate one for our family. Also I have changed up things in the side, so please check it out.

My Daddy Tees

Ok my lovely readers I wanted to share with you a wonderful site. (Of course I might be a little partial) It is called My Daddy Tees. It is a small side business set up by my wonderful hubby. He hand paints designs on shirts and onesies (on anything else you might want too). If you are looking for a shirt with a certian design and have a hard time finding it, check him out. The only thing he will not be able to do is a design that is already trademarked. He is up for anything else though.
This is actually one of my favorites that he has done. The picture actually does not even do it justice, It came out so great. So if you like this Stonehenge, Go check out his site now. I promise you will be very happy.

Yummy Fun!!!!!

We wanted to have a fun and yummy treat this weekened with the boys. What to do?
Well I have these two products. Any ideas yet. I mean it is ballons and candy melts.
Try blowing up the ballons and then putting a coating of melted candy melts on the bottom. Let them harden. Once it has harden pop the ballons.
Then you have some CANDY BOWLS. So fun and easy. Now what to put in them. Our choice...
Ice cream sundaes. Now that is a fun and yummy treat.

The boys loved them and can not wait to try them again.
I got the idea for this project over here at this site. I think that next time we do this I will use chocolate chips to make the bowl because I had problems coating it with the candy melts. I actually had to use a butter knife and spread it on the balloon. All in all though it was great fun.

Tuesday, August 25, 2009

A little Recap...

So I am a bit delayed with this reacap, sorry about that. Man time can really get away from you. We have been busy around here. Between School lessons and Field trips the boys fall dance lessons have now started back up.
Now we have more dance classes to tend to. Gabe is still doing Tap/ballet with hip hop right afterwards. Two hours of dance straight, and yet the kid still does not slow down. Sam is still doing the Hip Hop with his brother but now has a Tap class of his own. He is loving it so much.

We have been doing lots of Arts and Crafts. One of the favorite projects has been tie dying their own t-shirts.
There has been lots of board Games too.
There has even been some school time with daddy.
Of course we have squezeed in time for the pool. Sam has come leaps and bounds with his swimming. It is really amazing.

Time for an old family favorite. Bubble mania. Sorry about the poor shot but my battery died as I took the shot. really annoying :(

Another Art project the boys did was make Egyptian Estates. They had a lot of fun with this project. Sam's estate is on the top, Gabe's is below.
Lots of puzzle time.
The boys also made scarab paper weights for their Egypt studies.Gabe's is above, Sam's is below.
We have been doing Story of the world for our history lesson this year and the boys are loving it. The activity book is so full of activities. This Crown has been one of the favorite projects for the boys so far. It is the crown of ancient Egypt. Gabe has loved it so much, he has been wearing it all of the time. He has even been asked to be called the "pharoh". It has been lots of "This pleases the pharoh", "The pharoh is now unhappy" plus lots of other things. The boy is to funny.

I actually have a few more things that I want to post about so I will try to get back sometime this week. Have a great day.

Thursday, August 13, 2009

Another Week Wrap Up....

Plus one very tired mommy equals a pretty decent week. Another week is done here. It has been a very busy yet productive week. It amazes me to see how much they have grown over the last year. The maturity is showing in how hard they work. I mean don't get me wrong there is still the occasional fight on doing things, just less.
One night when I went to make supper, Gabe needed to do his file folder game still, so Sam offered to teach him. I thought great go for it, and they were so cute. Every time Gabe got it right, Sam would High Five him.
We have been loving our Story of the World Activity book. One of the new activities was to do cave paintings. The boys had a blast with it. Gabe tried to recreate his stuffed animals that he loves. Then Sam stayed more authentic with his. He made a hunting a wolly mammoth scene. I think that it turned out great.
For science this week daddy gave them a lesson to make ugly bugs. Supplies for this was mini muffins, frosting, candy corn, gummy worms, frosting, mini marshmallows, and pretzels. Amazing, instead of putting it on the weekend when he would be here, he put it during the week, so I got the joy of teaching them. I think he just wanted to avoid the sugar rush. :) They did have a blast though.

One of their life skill lessons was to work on cutting. I found a fun piece for Sam to cut out and assemble over here.
They both worked on State Capitals with daddy playing Sequence State Capitals. I absolutly love these sequence games. We have the kids version too, and now we got the Math one.

To work on some of logic that comes with math. The boys each had a puzzle to do. Gabe just works on the hundred piece puzzles right now, so he gets his done in one day. Sam is a little bit bigger so it takes longer. The puzzle he is working on right is Egypt based since we are studying Egypt. I will post pictures when is done because it is really neat. When you are done making it you can turn it into an art piece. For more on what I mean about that see here.
The boys are still working on their sewing skills. I can only share with you Gabes project because Sams is a gift for someone. Gabe is still a little hesitant about using a real needle so when I saw this idea I thought that it would be perfect for him.
The boys also did some baking. Sam measured out all of the ingredients and Gabe loved getting his hands dirty mixing it up. They made a delicious bread together.
Of course I needed to end with a brotherly love shot. Ok until next week. I will have more field trip pictures to share with you and of course school shots. Have a great week.











Our Weekend Field Trips

Over the weekend we were very busy with school work and field trips. To start off with we had more passes from the library to another museum. This time we went to visit the History Museum. It was in the old court house that was built in 1916. It was alot of fun.
Here is a picture from the outside of the court house. The building was so beautiful.
This is a map that they had displayed inside. It is of what the French thought Florida looked like in the 1500's. They thought that Cuba was huge.

This was an example of the desk from the early 1900's. The boys were very glad that they did not have to sit in this for school.
I love this. With all the talk people have about being green and recycling, people were trying ideas for it along time ago. This dress is made from an actual newspaper.
There was lots of great exhibits, but the boys favorite was the court room. You recreate a court case. Here both boys wanted to be judge.

Gabe was the attorney interviewing the witness, Daddy.

My little jury. I think the might be a little bias if I was on trial LOL.

The view from the balcony. I had such a hard time getting good photos while we were there, because of the huge windows. They were all over the building, beautiful but it made it hard to get pictures.
This was a display that told the boys about the local government and how it worked. The little one thought it would be funny and pretend to order a pizza.

Sunday we went to the Zoo. We treated the boys to a ride on the merry-go-round. This was the only shot that we got with Gabe looking at us. You see the mirror to the inside, well he loved watching himself the entire time in it.
This bird was so funny. I was taking his picture and left. Well when I left he ran around to the other side of the pen where the path went to. The wings were spread out wide, it was a sight to see. I thank I made a new friend. :)

The day before we went Gabe bought a stuffed flamingo at the museum, so he wanted to see the flamingos at the zoo. I guess that the flamingos wanted to see him to, the one below kept sticking his head through the fence to say hi. Something was driving the birds crazy at the zoo that day.

Both of the boys thought that it would be fun to play in the chains at the Aviary in the zoo. I wanted Gabe to smile, so he made sure to smile for me. Crazy kid. Sam thought that it would be great to break out of the chains. He looks so dangerous, lol.


Gabe would not leave until he had a chance to pat the goat. It was amazing how this goat could get his head back in with out getting the horns caught.
Then of course we could not complete our trip to the zoo with out a pose with the monkey statue.

A Birthday Gift....

My nephew is turning 3 this weekend and I was trying to figure out what to give him. I have to admit that I was a little stumped until I came across this great idea. The family was doing an activity about butterflies. It looked like so much fun that I had to make it. Of course I tend to go overboard and make alot of things. I made a bag for him to keep all of the pieces in, including a pocket on the front for the book. I fell in love with the fabric it is covered with little caterpillars and flowers.
Here is the stages of the butterfly for him to play with. To start with I attached a little white egg to the leaf. Second is a puppet to represent the caterpillar stage (a puppet so that he can eat through all the food). Then of course we have a cocoon. Finally a butterfly puppet to complete the stages.

Here is everything that he eats through the first week in the book. Everything is made from felt, I just made slits in the middle for him to put the puppet through.
Then last but not least is the food that he eats on the last day before entering the cocoon.
I made this with some help from Gabe. I thanked him at the end for the help and we had a nice little conversation about it.
me: thanks so much for your help. I could not have not done it with out you.
Gabe: I know, you helped a little too.
me: Just a little?
Gabe: yeah in the begining
Me: In the begining (scratching my head at this point)
Gabe: Yup you gave birth to me.
Me: Just a little help hah!
This kid is a riot. The boys loved the gift so much they have already picked out stories that I can make play sets for. Should be fun!