Fall times!

The crisp feeling of fall is finally in the air! I love when the seasons change it always gives such inspiration for change in life. As a mom I have found that while there are many things that change so fast like the boys growing up and what super hero they are into, I want to hold on to some things and let them be the same. This is where I feel family traditions start. Each family may do things around certain Holidays that they call traditions. Me I find myself loving the fact that a couple of years ago I started traditions when I didn't even realize it. I wanted to share one major tradition with you all in case you might like to try doing the same with your family. That is going to Crowe's Nest Farm. Two years ago I was lucky enough to be invited with a play group down to this cute farm and my oldest son who was about 15 months old at the time absolutely fell in love with the animals especially the cow!

He was obsessed with cows and mooing for many months after that. Then last year I realized that you can go to this farm with out a group once a year during their Fall Festival ( it may not be called that but that's what I refer to it as). I suggest taking your little ones down to Manor on one of the weekends they offer it this year in October. It is so refreshing to take a step out of city or even suburban life for a few hours and enjoy the farm animals. It's pretty cheap to get in and you can take your own lunch if you'd like, although they do serve up some food of their own. Oh and there is a perfect opportunity for those cute pumpkin patch pictures. Or you can be like me and get a picture with your favorite animal :)

http://www.crowesnestfarm.org/

There is also the Fall Festival at The Elgin Tree Farm which seems to be nice but we have never tried it out. We may go check it out this year because it seems to have tons of fun activites for the kids!

http://pages.suddenlink.net/jrf/ectf/dd2.htm

Hope you are enjoying this cool breeze in the air as much as I am!

H is for Happy!!!

Hooray for H! We Had tons of fun with the letter H! There are some great feelings that start with H and we sure did talk about them. We were always trying to stay Happy and give tons of Hugs! For some reason my kids were also feeling extra Hoppy and preferred to hop everywhere. There were some activited that I didn't get to and it looks like we will just Have to do them next time. But for now this is what we did:

* The kids made a House made of craft sticks and then colored them
on the inside and out. I loved seeing their imagination used for this one.

* I let the kids stencil hearts on a paper and then decorate them by glueing on pieces of colored tissue paper.

* We did a dot to dot Horse and then colored them! I 've never seen such colorful horses;)

* Lastly I seem to love making crafts on craft sticks so we went ahead and painted wooden Hearts and glued them onto colorful craft sticks. This was a 2 part craft since the paint had to dry but they really enjoyed it.

We ended our days Happy with lots of Hugs! Hope you Have a Happy day:)

G is Great!

Last week we took only one day to Go over G! So far it is the letter that the kids have had the hardest time actually writing. We did lots of writing practice, on paper and on the side walk. But we also did a couple of Great activites!

*I paired the words Green, Grass and Goat all into one activity. First we went outside to look at everything Geen and I let them pick a little bit of Grss. Then we came back inside and they cut out a Goat and Glued him onto a piece of construction paper. Then just for fun I let them glue on marshmellows as the Goat's tummy. Then they Glued their Grass on the picture and colored the Goat's collar.

* We colored a Gecko Green and practiced writing the letter G!

* We also played a lot of Green Light Red Light and I spy!

F is FUN!

Because of the busy week and the non crafty E, we spent a little bit more time with F because it really was FUN!

* We made a Family portrait- this is always fun at this age because you get to see what their little imaginations come up with!

* We colored lots of Fishies that were Friends from our coloring book.

*We made our own fishies to play with or use as a bookmark. I cut out a fish of 2 sizes and let the kids glue them on top of each other. Then we glued the fish onto a colorful stick. And the most fun part was letting the kids glue on the eye and the embellishments to make their fishie fun! By the way I got the bags of eyes and gems at the Dollar Tree!

*We made a picture with our FEET! I traced the kids feet and let them write Feet and their names as a keepsake.

*We made Faces on a plate. I gave the kids a paper plate and let them draw their interpretation of their Face. You can glue a stick to it and let them use it as a mask in front of their face if you would like.

*Last but not least was my Favorite we made Frames! We took colorful popsicle sticks and glued them together in a frame shape then glammed them up with some gems. Then I happened to have some magnet handy so I cut strips and stuck it to the back of the frames so the kids could put them on the Fridge!

E is for energy!

Sorry it's been a while, I experienced an amazingly busy week last week with doctor's visits and MOPS meetings which meanwhile took a lot of Energy out of my but didn't seem to bother my kid's energy:) We did find time to do a few activites last week but E has been the hardest letter for me to be creative thus far.

For letter E we did:

*Lots of practicing writing the letter E

*Colored some Elmo pictures

*Ate lots of Eggs

*Made an Eyes mask- I drew eyes on construction paper and let the kids color in the pupil their color. Then they helped me cut them out and I made holes in the middle for them to see out of and holes on the edges to carry yarn through to go around their heads.

* Learned all about the Earth and topped it off with making an earth suncatcher! I took a paper plate and cut out a whole in the middle and glued a piece of plastic wrap to cover the hole ( you can also use parchment paper).

Then I copied the earth onto the plastic with a permanant marker.

I gave the kids blue and green paint and they painted the earths and then we attached blue tissue paper strings to the bottom (you can use crepe paper instead). Finally I punched a hole at the top and looped a piece of yarn so they could hang it up.

The picture doesn't really do the kids artwork justice, but they were all so excited to get it home and put it on their windows!

D is for Dinosaur!

Last week we ended the week focusing on the letter D! Boys love all things D, Dinosaurs, Dragons, Dogs, the list could go on and on. So needless to say I focused on a couple of really hands on activites each day and the kids really enjoyed themselves. Plus there sure were plenty of dinosaur books to read along the way!

These are the activites we did:

*We made door hangers- I bought the foam ones that come in a pack of 4 at the Dollar tree and on one side I put there name and on the other side I let them color it however they liked and topped it off with plenty of dinosaur stickers!

* We made drums and drum sticks- I always keep the yogurt containers instead of tossing them and I finally got to use some for this activity. It was a 2 part process where I let the kids paint the "drums" with a dark color to try and mask the container and while it dried we made drum sticks with colorful straws that I taped a colorful popsicle stick on to one side. The kids had a blast using their drums as loud as they could!

* We made dinosaur prints- I had them drawn on a piece of manilla paper and let the kids color them however they wanted and then we added sand to the picture to show where the dinosaurs had left their prints in the sand. The kids had fun dipping their paintbrushes in glue then sprinkling on the sand.

*We made a dog puppet- I used a paper bag and had ear and tongue cutouts ready for them to just glue on.

* And of course we had multiple Dance parties!

C

The last couple of days were spent on the letter C in this house!

Again there are so many works and too many ideas to do all in 2 days. There were some good books that we read from the library as well as these activities:
* Colored a cow and practiced writing the letter C
* Colored a car and practiced writing the letter C
* Cut out a cat and glued it onto a piece of construction paper and colored it :)
* Colored a cookie and glued on beans to decorate it

* Played in Cream (shaving cream that is)- this was the favorite by far! I put a plastic table cloth on the ground and gave each child a serving of shaving cream and asked them to draw c's and they enjoyed the texture of it and slipping around it!

* Made a card for mom and dad!

Clouds would have been fun if it weren't raining the whole time, I would have taken them outside to watch the clouds go by and make up what they saw in the clouds. Who knows maybe tomorrow we will be able to throw this in?!

C you later!

B is for Black

Hello all!

Last week we took Thursday and Friday to focus on the letter B. Who knew there were so many words that begin with the letter b?! My son's favorite color is black so naturally everytime I asked the kids what the letter B said, he would say, " B, Ba, Black" We had fun with this one.

There were lots of Books from the library that I incorporated with our lesson which was awesome. We read a book about Buzzing Bees, Butterflies, Black, Blue and of course the letter B.

We did many activites including:

*Making bracelets- with a pipe cleaner, macaroni, and markers to decorate them. (this also works those motor skills too)

*Cutting out a butterfly from construction paper and decorating it

* Coloring a ball and practicing how to write the letter B

*Making a ball- I punched holes on the outer rim of a paper plate and let the kids thread some yearn through the holes and then they colored it how ever they wanted to and we wrote Ball in the middle. (also worked those motor skills ).

*Making a bookmark- I used that foam paper that's real cheap and cut strips out and punched a hole in the top and put a few pieces of yarn to dangle from it. Then I wrote their names on them and let them use markers and foam stickers to decorate them.

There were just so many ideas I had that we didn't get to so I can't wait to do the letter B again!

Today's Savings!

Today the Lunch Deal.com is offering a $30 coupon for Rudino's pizza for $15! Along with other offers. This pizza place is in Cedar Park at the shopping center where the new Cinemark theatre is and is SO yummy! Also Lunchdeals.com offers a program for refferals, very cool...so go check it out:

http://www.thelunchdeal.com/referafriend/?bl=el9taWVsY2FyZWtAeWFob28uY29t&s=ref

If you are a fan of Red Robin they have a couple of dishes that will be $5.99 for a limited time :)

Kohl's has a coupon that you can print for an extra 15% off anything this weekend:

Thanks to the blog ,Free Family Fun, I found out that particpating Chick Fil A's will be offering a free Spicy Chicken sandwich from 10:30 am to 10 pm on Monday to anyone wearing their favorite sports team Logo! I know where I'm eating lunch :) Just call and confirm ahead of time to make sure your location is participating.

Today's Groupon is half off at Mama Fu's! If you are a fan make sure you go and click on groupon on the side of my blog to buy yours today.

Don't forget that Ikea is offering their free kids meals this weekend Saturday through Monday, yum!

Also if you are a person who loves to clip coupons for the grocery store I thought I would share this site with you: http://www.smartsource.com/

They have some pretty good coupons that you can print.

And if you are a fan of getting free samples you can check out this website for samples for things like pampers, make up and baby food: http://freeflys.com/

ENJOY!

A

This week I started my own version of a curriculum for my son and the two kids I babysit. They are all 3 but one is a new 3 and the other two are almost 4, so it can be hard at times but for the most part they can all do about the same things. I decided that we would start off by focusing our time on letters. Since we have to throw in time to play, nap, snack and lunch we have little pockets of time during the day where I sit the kids down at the "activity table" and we have fun! I also decided that for us we will be working on one letter for two days and Wednesday will be out fieldtrip day or play a little more day;)

Over the weekend I went and gathered all the ideas I could from parenting magazines, to websites and blogs and then I went shopping for craft items! You know me, I am thrifty so for most everything I was able to buy at The Dollar Tree and the dollar bin in Target ( my favorite places to shop ), but for a few items like marbles and tempra paint I had to go to Micheal's.

This past Monday was the first day to start our new "school" as the kids call it and we started with the letter A. All day long I stressed how we say the letter A and everything that starts with the letter A so we could get practice remembering how to say it.

Our activites over the 2 days included:
*A color sheet with a picture of an apple and a place to practice writing A.
* Reading a book on Ants
* An ant that was colored, cut out, glued onto construction paper and of course followed up with more practice of writing A
* An ant made out of egg carton and pipe cleaners
* An alligator color by numbers picture ( for older 3's)
*Not to mention we threw in a game of memory and A blank piece of construction paper where they used their paint and brushes to make their own Art!


This is the finished product! You get the idea;)

Today was brought to you by the letter A!

Awesome deals today!

I am all about finding sales and getting everything at a deal so I thought I would share these with you today:

First of all if you have any type of smart phone like the EVO or Iphone a warranty is a must! Because we all know that they can break and Apple Care won't cover that so I reccommend you get a warranty through SquareTrade. My plan for my new iPhone 4 is $6/mth and the deductible is only $50 if anything happens to it. I totally reccomend it :) And today they are having a sale and you can get the normal plan for 30% off! The coupon code is WORKER. Check out the website for more info. Oh and another plus if you sign up for their warranty they send you a free case for your phone, score!

http://www.squaretrade.com/pages/

Next if you are a fan of Walgreens Photo you may want to know about their deal that they are offering until Saturday. You can buy one get one free on the clssic linen photo books! That's an awesome deal. Use the coupon code : CLASSICBOOK at check out. While you are there take advantage of the buy 25 prints get 25 free! Coupon Code is :GET25

http://www.walgreens.com/

If you like to shop at Sprouts today is DOUBLE Deals day where you can take advantage of all sale products from last week and the ones from this week. Some of my favorites for this week are all BERRIES are 4 for $5! That's blackberries, blueberries, strawberries and raspberries! If your kids are anything like mine they can go through a pack a day!

To subscribe to their monthly newsletter with awesome deals visit their website:

http://sprouts.com/home.php?goto=ad