Rain Barrel

Look what my handy hubby made today!  Thanks to Alicia for the reminder that we had this unfinished project in our garage!  Jon got an empty barrel last summer to adapt to a rain barrel so we could use the extra water for our garden.  He finished (well, & actually started) it today!  Love the valve at the bottom to easily fill up the watering can!  Which reminds me I need to finish the post I've started on our garden...maybe next week I'll get those pics up!

Z- zero, zig-zag, Zaccheus

We learned/played this week using the letter Z.  The kids had fun doing a water-resist art using white crayons to color the number 0, then using watercolors, painted over it with red paint.  

This was supposed to illustrate that Jesus washed our sins away white as snow--however, the color resist didn't work so well and some of the 0 got a little red.  I had to wipe it away with a tissue, and it worked ok since the part that wasn't colored stayed red.  The kids had fun, which was what matters most!







We made some Z letter formations using some felt cut into zig zag shapes...I was going to buy some ric-rac, but I have tons of material, so this seemed just as good to use!



The kids had SO much fun doing a "zig-zag race" where I set up cones in a zig zag pattern for them to follow.  Sean got the concept, Lilly-not so much!  She was more interested in trying to go fast and straight!  (I wish I would remember NOT to talk while taking videos of the kids!  My accent is absolutely twangy!)

Our Bible story for the week was of Zaccheus (who else?)  and the kids enjoyed using our felt board some more--Sean even told the story to us by himself, though it was just by singing the song I taught them that we all learned in Bible school..."Zaccheus was a wee little man, and a wee little man was he!" Sean emphasized the "You come DOWN!" part a little too enthusiastically...didn't get this on video so maybe I'll take one sometime and update this post...if I find the time...so don't count on it :)

Hope everyone has a great weekend!

Giving Blogger another shot...

So, as you can tell, this blog post is coming from my old Blogger account.  I've decided to try to give it another go on here for a few reasons...

1- from the start, I could tell that Wordpress is for more advanced bloggers, as you have to pay/use some "real" web design for many if not most of the features (including changing the font type, color, size, etc!) It made my blog seem so very boring and elementary

2- I REALLY miss being able to change the background of my blog to seasonal/themed backgrounds.  I just can't do this in wordpress without paying money or being more skilled with web design.

3- I found a setting where I can disable my blog from being found using search engines.  I think this will get rid of unwanted visitors who may be stalking random blogs.  In fact, if I had found this setting before, I don't think I would have ever switched over to wordpress.

For these reasons, I'm going to give blogger another go...we'll see how things work out.  I've always got my wordpress page to fall back on, but I'd really like my pretty blog back :)  Now I just need to figure out how to export posts from wordpress back onto this one so everything is all in one place again!

Some recent videos...

Brilee trying to find her tooth using her tongue...but she's looking on the wrong side of her mouth!  It's inside, sweetie!



Lilly singing the "Tiny Turtle Song"

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oCaNIOwo5ZI

Sean wanted to join in on the fun--singing it together

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PiqoKizL3Dg

Easter Pictures

Brilee woke up with a fever on Easter morning, so I stayed home with her from church.  I still put her in her dress so we could take some pictures of all the kids.  She was a trooper and has been having a hard time with congestion.  Her fever is now gone, so hopefully she won't get a sinus infection or anything. Below are all the pictures.  It was hard to get them all to look at the camera together, but we got a few good shots.

Spring Party/Egg Hunt

This is just a quick post of pictures from this morning--we had some friends from church over for an egg hunt/party.  There were a total of 10 kids for only 4 moms!





They did the egg hunt first thing since it was threatening to rain.  I was using Jon's camera at first, and I couldn't figure out how to switch it off manual mode--to my dismay, all of those pictures are dark and barely recognizable.  However, I had switched to my camera towards the end when his ran out of memory space, so I have a few good shots, mostly of Lilly.













Brilee was so sleepy and ready for her nap...



I have to add in one of the dark ones from Jon's camera just because I have to have a pic of Sean!--even if he's barely recognizable!  Sean had a lot of fun and wanted to eat his candy right away...some of the boys were dumping out their candy on the patio table to dig right in.   Since he only got one or two egg-fulls in, I hope that won't hinder the nap he's taking right now!   

Lilly was so tuckered out all morning and so mellow--I think it might be the Claritin I gave her this morning to help with her allergies.  The bottle says non-drowsy, but she was not her usual perky/full of attitude self!  Hoping that results in a long nap too! :)  Though Brilee is wide awake right now since she took her nap while the kids were eating lunch.  Oh well, C'est la vie!

And just because Wordpress always publishes the last photo as the thumbnail for my posts, I have to put the first picture back up so the dark one of Sean isn't the headliner of this post!

Our Easter activities

It has been very difficult for me to get on the computer to blog the past couple of weeks!  The main reason is that Brilee has been having a terrible time teething, and spends most of Sean & Lilly's naptime crying--she is tired, but will not sleep nor play happily...so I spend most of the time playing with her or trying to comfort her.  Thankfully, her first tooth FINALLY popped through last Thursday (April 14) but she still has some others just below her gumline that are still bothering her.  She is giving me a little time today to get on here, so I'm going to try to finish this post!

We've been having some fun things going on for Easter!  I wanted to connect the Easter story with them AS MUCH as possible, so we've been reading it from their Bible almost every day.  I wanted to find or make a felt board set to use with them for Bible story time.  One day when we were at the park, I decided to drop by the Homeschool Room  before we headed home since it was nearby.  I asked if they had any Bible felt stuff, and they tell me they just got in a complete set of Betty Lukens' The Bible in Felt the day before!  I can't tell you how ecstatic I was!  They hadn't priced it out yet, so they took my name & number so they could call me when it was ready to see if I wanted to purchase it.  Well, yesterday they finally called me back, and I felt like a little kid again when I got home with it!  The pieces are all SO organized and it has backgrounds/overlays for all the different Bible stories along with the teacher's manual that contains the actual stories themselves.  I feel so blessed to have found this set, and the kids really connect with it as we're reading through the stories.  I think interaction is key at this age!



The set organized inside the box--there are 12 pages laid out like this one with a space for each piece with a corresponding number printed on each piece.

Jesus being arrested in the garden of Gethsemane

Jesus praying in the garden while the disciples sleep

Jesus on trial before Pilate / Peter denying Jesus

A couple of weeks ago I also ordered the "Resurrection Eggs" set from Christian Book Distributors (they had it on sale for Easter).  It is an advent calendar of sorts, except you open up an egg every day that has a piece of the Easter story inside.  I printed off a free printable set from one of the blogs I follow that corresponds to each egg--that way they have another visual to see and read with each egg.  The kids love opening these up and playing with the pieces inside!  (we just have to make sure this gets put up above their reach when we're done so Brilee doesn't get ahold of it!)

Moving on!  (I told you there was a lot to catch up on!) We blew out eggs and dyed them today so we can hang them on our tree outside....um, correction- I blew out the eggs (because it was SO difficult) and I dyed the eggs while the kids watched (because it was messy and I imagined in my head what would happen if one of the kids tipped the bowl of dye all over the counter/floor/themselves.  Thankfully, they still enjoyed watching and "helping" by stirring the eggs around in the bowl of dye.

Now they are ready to hang on our tree outside...which reminded me of the picture from Easter last year we took in front of our house.  Nana had made eggs with Sean last year and we hung them outside and took pics on Easter morning.  I am amazed how much the kids have grown in just 1 year!  Lilly seems like just a baby (she was 16 months here)


And I was about 5 months pregnant at the time--that seems like it was years ago now that Brilee is almost 10 months old and is crawling around and almost cruising!

Here's a little video of Brilee--not sure if it ever posted correctly on my previous blog post--



We have been extremely busy this week meeting friends at the park, going to lunch, working in the garden (that is a separate blog post in and of itself that I need to get up with pics!)  Our week of excitement continues tomorrow with an Easter Egg Hunt/party with some friends at church.  The kids are so excited!  We also have another hunt with some friends in the neighborhood on Saturday.   What fun!

Catching Up

I haven't posted this week, and I admit I miss my old blog through blogger where it seemed a bit more user-friendly and I could customize the backgrounds to match the seasons.  I completely traded those things off for the privacy factor of wordpress, so I guess I need to stick with my decision!  I've taken a couple of videos and pictures the past week that I haven't gotten the chance to post yet on my blog (though I posted them on facebook from my phone!) So I'll do them all together now even if they are a repeat for some of you on facebook...

This is of Lilly singing one morning at breakfast...



This is Brilee crawling around one day last week...



And this is from tonight of Brilee waving at me...









http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s_uMLTKsSig



http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vFaWX22RPg4

Hot Cross Buns

The kids and I made hot cross buns today since we're studying X and I wanted something fun and not very structured for them to do.  It also came at the perfect time to start studying Easter since it is a traditional Easter recipe.   The kids had fun with these!



I forgot to take pictures while we were mixing the ingredients, but here they are rolling them out after the dough had risen an hour.



Sean with his pile of buns...he was saying, "look how many buns I have!"



Then they had to rise another 45 minutes until we brushed them with an egg wash and baked them.  Yummy!

The kids wanted to have their snack outside...it has been a BEAUTIFUL day today!  The kids have stayed outside almost all day except for our baking, and they are still there now while my chicken is marinating and I'm blogging :)

After this one bite, LIlly stopped eating the bun and merely licked off the X icing instead...

We're definitely going to make these again for Easter morning!

!