amandaspace1330

King Jack and the Dragon by Peter Bentley, beautifully illustrated by Helen Oxenbury became our new favorite book after Tristan found it at the library last week. (The kid really has an instinct about books! It's uncanny.) Anyway, this make-believe story about real kids is so cute and refreshing. It celebrates imagination and childhood fantasy as well as good clean fun. Of course, as the title suggests, the book targets the male audience. Anastasia and I still thoroughly enjoyed every reading. This is a book that I would love to have in my boy's room library, ranking right up there with Little Blue Truck and the Little Engine that Could . 

I guess I've been falling off the band wagon of blogging about our "schooling". We've been keeping up with our letters in a more relaxed way. Last week (the week of Ana's birthday) we learned about the letter P and it was a busy week. Monday we talked about our last name beginning with the letter P and then Tuesday we had Ana's Party. Wednesday we had a get-together at Panera bread and that was our P for the day, Thursday we Painted Thank-you cards and that ended the P week. We did not get fun books at the library about the letter, nor did we do any worksheets or coloring pages. M week began well, and then fell off a little. We started with a coloring sheet about Baby Moses and I read the story while they colored. This seems to be an effective way for me to get a Bible story into the morning. Then we made Pumpkin Muffins and learned the Muffin Man rhyme, that's about where it ended. Letter N week was cool. We focused on the amazing Narwhal and had a colori...

April 23, 2013 Ana's 2nd Birthday. It snowed all day, so we played inside at an activity center and then had some fun at home making pizza and eating cake! Ana got her first taste of honey! Now she knows what she's been missing!  I can't believe she's so big and grown-up!!! Super cool!

Saturday morning began with fog and frost and ended in beautiful sunshine. We hiked at Mt. Herman and watched nature transform from foggy frost to midday sun. The kids hiked better than ever, Anastasia only had to be carried a short while. Midway through the hike we made it to the big rock formation where a pair of falcons scolded us harshly for stopping for a snack. Then proceeding through the forest, the trees began to lose their frost. It sounded like a heavy rainfall as the water dripped vigorously from the trees. It was cool, by the time we got as far as we were going to go, the sky had cleared and we had beautiful views and a much warmer trip back.

Yesterday, normally our library day, it snowed and a blizzard warning was in effect all day. So we stayed inside. We baked Pumpkin muffins (in honor of M week) and we also played a color game. I set out colored sheets of cardstock and made a color wheel. Whatever color was spun we had to run to that piece of paper. After all the colors had been called a couple of times, we removed a color and when that color was spun we had to do an activity like, jump up and down or clap hands or pat ourselves on the head, then we'd remove another color and play again. We all enjoyed ourselves and got out some energy too! About a month ago, when we started noticing Robin Redbreast back in town, and the shoots of the daffodils springing out of the ground, we started some pea seeds in jars. We watched as they grew from little shrivelled nothings into beautiful seedlings. Then we planted them and they are growing quite happily in our sunny basement until the weather warms up. The kids are very excit...

Last week we learned letter K. We talked about Kites, both the animal kind and the toys named for said animal. We talked about Kangaroos, Koalas, Kittens and the Kitchen. We always spend lots of time in the kitchen, so this came quite naturally to us. Two cute books for week K. The Berenstein Bears We Like Kites, and Sebastien Braun's Meow and the Pots and Pans. This was the first book about Meow that we've gotten and I wish I had found these books two years ago. They are very cute and on a 1 year old learning level. We enjoyed making paper kites of our own and Tristan "flew" his all the way to the park. We also enjoyed making music with the pots and pans. For L week we learned about Lady bugs, lambs, leapards and lions. We got books on Leapord Seals (a beloved Sandra Markle "animal predators" book), snow leapords, African leapords and leapord gecko's. I forgot to pick up the last book, though it truly intrigued me. We also read the book Laugh-Out-Lou...

This weekend, for Jason's birthday/Easter we took a trip to Estes Park, CO. After the 2.5 hour drive and picnic lunch at the welcome center on the Big Thompson river, we hit Rocky Mtn. National Park. We hiked cub lake trail, though we didn't make it to the lake. Jason spotted a ground squirrel on the rocks, the first of many that we saw over the weekend.  Fire had recently burned the area surrounding the trail. It smelled like ash and the evidence of the fire was so fresh. Quite an experience. On our way out of the park we encountered a herd of Elk grazing on the Moraine. Then we went out for pizza at Poppy's (encountering more Elk grazing in town) and checked into our cabin at the YMCA. Saturday morning, after a quick breakfast in the cabin, we went out to hike Bear lake.  The lake was totally frozen and we hiked on about 40 inches of snow pile. Awesome views and such a cool place. Th...